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Mazda celebrates: MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary limited edition

There's a party going on at Mazda, and the Miata is the guest of honor -- the 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary special edition, that is. Just debuted at the Chicago Auto Show this month, the forever-young two-seater is sportier than ever in its exclusive coat of Racing Orange exterior paint. And with a peppy 181-hp SKYACTIV-G 2.0L engine under the hood, drivers are sure to have a good time.

Continuing to embrace the philosophy of the original 1989 MX-5 Miata, Mazda says this special edition represents three decades of history -- from the passionate Mazda engineers who created the first-generation MX-5 as a homage to early lightweight European sportscars, to the succeeding development engineers who took up the challenge to build on the high ambitions of their predecessors. Collectively, they all helped the MX-5 reach amazing heights, from being the first car to win both World Car of the Year and World Design of the Year in the same year with the current generation MX-5 Miata in 2016, to achieving production of 1 million units in April 2016. In total, Mazda says the MX-5 has won over 280 awards.

Mazda has produced commemorative models at each 10-year anniversary. These special editions not only feature exclusive mechanical parts and tuning, they also offer distinctive body colors.

The 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary is offered in both soft top ($34,995) and RF ($37,595) models and builds upon the 2019 Mazda MX-5 Grand Touring, which added many new features including a newly refined powertrain rated to deliver 181 hp and 151 lb-ft of torque -- a 17 percent increase over the previous model year.

The most noticeable feature is the exclusive Racing Orange exterior paint color. You can't miss it. Mazda says this striking and vivid color "pays homage to the yellow MX-5 Miata Club Racer that also debuted at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show. ... Racing Orange is meant to represent sunrise and anticipation, while staying true to the characteristics of a pure sports car."

Forget all that deep stuff. We think it just says, "fun."

The roof on the RF is painted Racing Orange, while the soft top features a black cloth top. The theme continues to the interior with orange interior louvers and orange piping on the heated RECARO sports seats. The seats in this special edition are wrapped in Alcantara, which is also found in the door inserts and lower instrument panel.

Serialized badging on the driver's side rear quarter panel lets everyone know this car is something special.

A nice contrast to all that orange is the new RAYS ZE40 17-in. Dark Gunmetal forged alloy wheels. The wheels are based on the Global MX-5 Cup Car, which is a design attempt to connect the car back to its racing roots. The special edition also sports orange calipers (Brembo at the front, NISSIN at the rear) and Bilstein dampers (manual transmission models only).

Seat headrests each feature a pair of built-in speakers with sound tuned by TrueSpace technology by Bose. The Mazda Connect system supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Standard is Sirius with three-month subscription and new Sirius three-year Traffic Plus and Travel Link subscription.

Production of the 2019 Mazda MX-5 30th Anniversary model will be limited to a total of just 3,000 units worldwide. In the United States, there will be a total of 500 non-sequentially badged units available.

Source: Mazda North America

Published February 2019

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