Review and photos by Justin Pritchard
I try to drive some variant of the Mazda MX-5 every year, because of how it captures the joy of sports motoring in such a pure, simple and concise way. Regular driving of the MX-5 helps establish a baseline from which to compare competing products.
Perspective, and such.
   2013 Mazda MX-5 GS. Click image to enlarge |
Over the years, this means I’ve taken the little Japanese drop-top camping, on road trips, around town, and on cruises to check out the fall colors. We’ve even gone to drift school together and driven far out of town to visit friends for a weekend at the beach.
This all got me thinking that there was only one place I hadn’t yet driven the MX-5 yet: winter.
So, I picked up the latest MX-5 tester in Scarborough on a sunny mid-February morning with a whopping 80 kilometres on its odometer, before heading north, to Sudbury, to show the young ragtop its first snowstorm.
“But it’s a summer car! It’s light! Its rear-wheel drive! You’ll skid and slide and crash into a snowbank the moment you release the clutch!!” said the disapproving glances of many motorists who saw it out in the snow.
Thing is, more than ever these days, automakers are answering the call of shoppers for more ‘year-round ready’ convertibles. Case in point? The now virtually standard Power Retractable Hard Top (PRHT) fits MX-5 with a solid, motorized roof for more insulation from the elements. It’s now easier for MX-5 owners to join the slew of convertible Mustangs, 200s, A5s, and C70s sharing Canadian roads with snow and slush and ice and salt.
So, me and the little Japanese roadster did a few thousand kilometres together over the course of about 10 days – and survived 2 ‘snow days’, freezing rain, and about 400 highway kilometres in a Weather Network–certified, “stay off of the roads, folks” snowstorm.
This all took place some six months after driving a mechanically identical MX-5 at a track day for what I figured, at the time, was an unrelated story.
I was wrong. Turns out that a lot of the attributes and hardware that make the MX-5 fun on a track make it a decent winter drive, too.
First and foremost? A fifty-fifty weight distribution. A slack-jawed yokel refueling his Canyonero beside me at the Petro-Can posed the following inquiry: “Ah-hee-hee-hee!!! Ain’t she light in the arse-end?!!??”
I explained to this fella’ how perfect weight distribution works. Yes, my “little red hippie car” (his words, not mine) was light in the tail – and just as light in the front. Each axle bears about the same amount of weight – so it’s no lighter in front than in the arse. He looked at me like I had two heads.
On a track, this perfect weight balance means the car is lively, eager, agile and planted almost no matter what drivers throw at it. In winter, perfect weight balance means MX-5 is no more likely to slide its tail than its nose if a skid occurs. If that happens (intentionally or otherwise), it’s predictable and easy to regain control.
  2013 Mazda MX-5 GS. Click image to enlarge |
The MX-5, naturally, likes to go straight, not sideways. So, when you’re driving it carefully, skidding isn’t a scary thing because there’s no heavy mass at either end trying to pendulum the car around.
Second bit of track hardware that helps in the winter? A Limited Slip Differential (LSD). In the same way that a human uses two legs to walk, an LSD makes sure the car to which it’s bolted uses both drive wheels to get moving. On a track, the LSD means plenty of traction for powering out of corners and getting off the line fast. In winter, it means that both rear wheels always participate in moving the MX-5, rather than allowing the wheel on the more slippery side to spin freely while the other one stays stationary.
You see, in most cars, if one of the drive wheels spins, more power goes to it, making it spin even more, while abandoning the wheel that might actually be able to get you moving. After a while a car with traction control will slow the engine down, or brake that wheel, but an LSD locks both drive wheels to each other so that they spin at the same rate and allows the wheel with traction to drag the car out of whatever mess you’re in. Four-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive cars are an entirely different beast – see my full report on Ford’s AWD Technology for more on that.
After 10 days in snow, deep snow, deeper snow and freezing rain, I never got stuck, never ‘almost’ got stuck, and never worried that I might.
 2013 Mazda MX-5 GS. Click image to enlarge |
Third? The chassis and suspension. Engineers set the MX-5 up for fantastic communication between the car and driver, and vice versa. Responses to inputs are virtually instant. You can ‘feel’ everything the car is up to, too. Hit black ice? You’ll feel the steering squirm and lighten slightly as it happens. Losing traction in a corner? A slight wriggle warns you first. Braking on snow? You can feel, through the pedal, how much grip you’ve got. By giving driver a high-resolution image of their current traction situation through the controls and chassis, MX-5 is easy to drive confidently. And confident drivers tend not to have expensive ‘whoopsies’ on snow-covered roads.
Fourth? Antilock Brakes with Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD). By metering out stopping power to each wheel on an individual basis, EBD compensates for varying traction between the tires. On a track, this means surefooted, stable stopping, even if you, say, jam the brakes mid-corner when two wheels are carrying less of the car’s weight. In the winter, the system compensates for varying traction caused by varying surfaces under each side of the car. Jam the binders when two tires are on snow and two are on pavement, and the nose stays pointed ahead. In virtually any hard-stop situation, MX-5 stops straight, stable and drama free.
There is one track-ready bit of hardware that doesn’t do the MX-5 any favours in the snow: the wheels. These, and the tires that surround them, are wide. And the car weighs about as much as a coffee table. On the track, that means heaps of grip. More grip than you’d be able to overpower with the 168-horsepower engine. So, you get forgiving, non-threatening and confident at-the-limit handling, even if you’re a ham-fisted klutz.
On snow, the large surface area of the tires and light weight of the car mean it never really ‘digs’ into snow and slush, but prefers to flit over top of it (the wider the tires, the more they act like skis gliding over snow rather than spikes digging through). It still goes in a straight line and feels stable, but if you’re after the heavyweight locked-on feeling of driving an SUV in a snowstorm, you won’t find it here.
Other notes from my test drive? The MX-5’s small cabin tightens up further when you’re wearing mitts, boots and a coat. If you’re north of 300 lb and afraid of celery, you’re probably not driving an MX-5 anyways. And, in any case, if you’re a bigger guy or gal, you’ll be extra snug.
It’s also hard to get your Sorels into the footwell without whacking the door and scuff plates in the process. You wear the MX-5, especially in winter. Thankfully, the cabin heats up quickly even in extreme cold, thanks to an efficient heater and its small size.
Ground clearance was surprising. The MX-5 is low, but not impractically so. I only had issues with the largest of frozen slush-boulders whacking the underside of the car. When appropriate, dodging around them in a game of slush-boulder-slalom is even more fun.
   2013 Mazda MX-5 GS. Click image to enlarge |
Oh, and one more important thing. For maximization of your investment in the winter months, why not enjoy the MX-5 topless in the winter? I sure did. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I put the roof down and enjoyed a cruise, sans-lid, at minus ten. With a toque and winter coat of medium thickness, I was toasty warm, even at highway speeds. The heater wasn’t maxed out, and I wasn’t even wearing gloves.
Interestingly, while moving, the MX-5’s aerodynamics traps a ‘bubble’ of warm air in the cabin. It’s only when you stop for a traffic light that it gets chilly, and then only slightly so.
One gentleman towing a trailer full of Ski Doos asked me if I was nuts, or freezing. I pointed out that he drives his sleds in colder temperatures than this, and that they don’t even have heaters.
Oh, and spinning snow donuts with the roof down is nearly unbeatable fun.
Just sayin’.
So – my official assessment? The MX-5 isn’t a Ford Raptor when it comes to confidently getting around in deep, slippery stuff. But with a set of decent winter tires and half a clue how to drive in the snow, you’ll be just fine.
