Mazda will showcase a new MX-5 with retractable hardtop at the British motor show on July 20. Sources told Automotive News Europe (ANE) that European sales of the new MX-5 will start in September.
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They say the car’s starting price will be about 10% higher than the MX-5 soft top. The soft top’s base price in Germany is EUR21,200. Since its debut in 1989, three generations ago, the MX-5 has come with a manually operated soft top.
At the same time, European dealers are puzzled about Mazda’s decision to offer a retractable hardtop version of the MX-5, because the current model didn’t go on sale until late last year. “It is strange to do this so early in the model’s life cycle,” Colin Couchman, an analyst at Global Insight, told ANE. “They’ll have the market to themselves, when the MG TF, Smart Roadster and Toyota MR2 are gone,” Couchman said. “I don’t see the need for it.”
Dealers told ANE that the arrival of retractable hardtop coupe cabriolets like the Peugeot 206 CC, Peugeot 307 CC and Nissan Micra C+C has had minimal impact on MX-5 sales.
“The MX-5 is so different from other coupe convertibles that customers are satisfied with the soft top,” said Robert Jan Ego, a salesman at Autobedrijf Leerentveld in Zwolle, Netherlands.
