New Mazda MX-5 to Feature “Affordable” Carbon Fibre

The fifth generation of the Mazada MX–5 won’t be available before 2021, but the popular Japanese sports car will feature carbon fibre composites.

Mazda MX–5 Miata program manager Nobuhiro Yamamoto told Autocar that future versions of the sports car will lose even more weight, and they are developing an affordable carbon fibre composite material.

The size is right, but in the future lightweight materials will be very important and will be used in this car. Now carbon fibre is very expensive, but we have in development affordable carbon fibre, so the MX–5 will be lighter in the future.

Yamamoto, also suggested that the lightweight sports car with its carbon fibre weight loss could get away with smaller tyres and engine. The current MX–5’s base engine is a 129bhp 1.5-litre unit.

No details have been provided at this stage on just how much carbon fibre materials will be used on the new car and what new process will be used to make it more affordable. Adding carbon fibre will almost surely add to the overall cost of the car, but it looks like we’re going to have to wait a bit longer to find out by how much.