TESTED 2008 Mazda MX-5 Miata Grand Touring PRHT

WHAT IS IT? Two-seat sports car with retractable hardtop.

HOW MUCH? US$27,395 base; $28,840 as tested with $430 Sirius satellite radio, $500 suspension package
and $515 interior trim package.

WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD? 2-liter in-line 4 (166 horsepower, 140 pound-feet of torque); 6-speed manual transmission.

IS IT THIRSTY? The 2008 federal mileage rating is a reasonable 21 m.p.g. in town, 28 on the highway.

Somewhere along the line, the Mazda Miata became a pop-culture punching bag. The Miata appears in the movies
“Corky Romano” and “Super Troopers,” as well as Comedy Central’s “Reno 911,” cast as the car of choice for the comically
misguided. How can a serious sports car attract this sort of undeserved mockery? Probably because it’s too subtle.

I love gross displays of brute force as much as the next American, so I can see why the Miata is one of the most misunderstood
cars on the market. It doesn’t have side pipes or a hood scoop or a name that conjures images of bloodlust and rage.
Therefore we should pick on it.

Unjustified the teasing may be, but Mazda noticed the trend. When it introduced the third-generation car as a 2006 model,
Mazda rather huffily declared that it wasn’t to be called Miata — it was now just the MX-5.

Well, maybe Gordon Sumner can put “Sting” on his business cards and make it stick, but the general public continued to
call the car Miata, which is how we arrive at the tortured moniker of today’s subject: the Mazda MX-5 Miata Grand Touring PRHT.

It’s an MX-5. It’s a Miata. It’s a PRHT. Great — a what?

That letter jumble stands for “power retractable hard top.” I’m on record as saying that the retractable-hardtop convertible craze
will eventually go the way of Crocs and televised dance contests, and become a source of material for VH1’s “I Love the ‘00s.”

Mazda took a look at the drawbacks of power hardtops (increased weight, reduced luggage space, wonky styling) and decided
that it would just have to make one without any of those problems. The Miata’s stowed hardtop fits in the same space as the softtop,
it looks great up or down and incurs a weight penalty of only 80 pounds — and those pounds are at the back of the car, improving
weight distribution.

Even with the PRHT (sorry, but that’s the kind of thing you want to abbreviate), the Miata is a fit 2,573 pounds.
This is a hardtop that makes a case for itself.

In Grand Touring trim, the Miata is pretty much loaded, including goodies like a Bose stereo and heated leather seats.
My car had two notable options, one a bargain and one not so much. The $500 suspension package is a steal, including
“sport-tuned suspension,” Bilstein shocks and a limited-slip differential.

You couldn’t find those pieces in a junkyard for that price.

The $515 interior trim package, on the other hand, consists of a few bits of “aluminum look” trim on the door panels and
dashboard. Mind you, this isn’t aluminum trim — it’s plastic. For that price, on a per-ounce basis, I’d think you could trim your
doors and dash in anything from titanium to sashimi-grade tuna belly.

So tell you what, Miata buyers: If you want aluminum trim, give me a call and I’ll glue the backside of a beer can to your dash
and charge you only $500.

Now, like a lot of people, I get seduced by outrageous horsepower and blinding acceleration. So I tend to forget how wonderful
the Miata is, because you need to drive it to understand its appeal.

On paper it seems unremarkable, but a mere spec sheet won’t divulge the essence of this car. Its 166-horsepower engine
doesn’t make face-melting power, but it seems to have no flywheel whatsoever, and a blip of the throttle results in an instant,
melodic zing that begs you to match revs on your next downshift. The shifter feels as though a team of engineers spent months
working on its action, and a flick of the wrist rewards you with the rare feeling of metal engaging metal, a precision machine
at work.

The chassis won’t generate blackout-inducing G-forces, yet note the steering wheel when you ease off in a corner:
it stays almost where it is, having almost no self-centering tendency.

There’s no traction control, no stability control, no computers subtly undermining your throttle or steering inputs with their
own second-guesses. It’s just you and the car, and it’s great gobs of fun.

The Miata is, and always has been, a meticulously engineered sports car for hard-core purists. But it gets used as a
Corky Romano sight gag because it’s not macho in any way that our culture comprehends.

It is probably inevitable that Mazda will eventually buff up the Miata’s image by giving it the 263-horsepower turbocharged
engine from the Mazdaspeed 3. The resulting car will be faster, but I have a feeling that, hardtop or softtop, the original version
— so light, so fluid, so balanced and slick — will still be the best.