I've had 3 MX-5's (all bought new) starting with an NA (pop-up headlights) in 1993, then an NB8A in 99, then in 2002, I bought an SP (the rare, high powered turbo model) which I still own and covet greatly.
They are fantastic cars!
In fact, I traded in a Porsche Turbo for my first MX-5!
I've done lots of road driving as well as racing in my MX-5's, and they are great fun.
Power is not really important in an MX-5, as they are just so responsive and fun to drive.
Other cars may beat you on the straight, but they will fall back under brakes or around corners (unless you get a turbocharged one, then they won't see where you even came from)!
I've driven a few Honds S2000's as well, and they are also great to drive, but you have to rev the beejeesus out of them to get any fun, and they are very impractical with tiny boots and virtually no glovebox etc.
At least with the MX-5, you can fit a lot into the boot, in fact, my wife and I use it for our supermarket shopping and we've even gone away for 10 days in it and managed to fit everything we needed into the boot.
There are MX-5 clubs all over the world, and they are a very friendly bunch and happy to help out, so I would find out about your local MX-5 club and contact them and arrange to go to one of their events, where you can see all the models in one place and I'm sure the owners would be happy to take you for a ride so you can see and feel what they are really like.
They're easy to drive, yet they are very tough cars.
I used to teach people how to drive on a race-track, and have driven many types of cars, but the MX-5's were one of the few cars you could thrash aroud a track all day long, and all they needed was petrol, where many other cars had all sorts of problems even just doing a few laps before their power steering pumps overheated, hell, I even had an MG drop a wheel on me once, and a BMW M3's fancy automated manual box try and select numerous gears all at once.
Mx-5's are cheap to run, cheap to insure and you can get parts forthem very easily too. both OEM and aftermarket, and there are so many things you can do to them to personalise them just for you.
If you buy one, and find out it doesn't suit you, they are also easy to sell afterwards as they have a great, and deservedly so, reputation.
Here's a poor shot of my car.
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