In 1989, with the impact of a 100-mph fastball to the jaw, the MX-5 Miata rocked the sports-car world. This wild pitch from Mazda marked the return of the relatively inexpensive, lightweight 2-seat roadster with a manually operated folding top— an MGB for the 1990s whose fuel pump didn’t require periodic whacks with the lug wrench and whose mechani­cals leaked nary a drop of lu­bricant. The Miata was a slap in the face of increas­ingly costly, difficult-to-in-sure, heavier sports cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette, Toyota Supra, Nissan 300ZX and Mitsu­bishi 3000GT; and an af­front to the more-powerful-is-better school of design. Rather, the emphasis was on agility, responsiveness, nimbleness: "the oneness between rider and horse,” as Toshihiko Hirai, original program manager for the Miata, so descriptively put it. Power, all 116 horses courtesy of a longitudinal­ly mounted 1.6-liter DOHC inline-4 borrowed from the 323 subcompact, was delivered through a 5-speed man­ual whose fantastically precise shifts could be accomplished with little more than wrist action. And this little roadster was a road leech of the first order, with contact patches of its185/60HR-14 tires expertly con­trolled through responsive double ­wishbone suspension and rack-and-pinion steering whose power assist was optional. Traditionalists rejoiced; first-time sports car buyers were irre­sistibly lured in. Mazda responded with a busily humming Hiroshima as­sembly line, to date putting more than 420,000 of these charmers on the road worldwide. In a serendipitous turn of events, I was just starting my career at Road & Track when we took delivery of one of the first Miatas, Mariner Blue with Option Package A that included power steering, a leather-wrapped wheel and those just-so 7-spoke Minilite look-alikes. It was to stay with us for 50,240 miles of long-term evaluation.

That day, all the editors abandoned their word processors in mid-­metaphor to surround the little blue roadster in our parking lot. We fawned over it, we fondled the controls, we doted on its details—heck, we might have even drooled a bit as we took in the Miata’s retro design touches and Lotus Elan-like sheet-metal contours. And then we drove it, neglecting piles of unedited manuscripts as we lined up curbside, waiting for that memorable first blast around the block.

Today, a little more than nine years later, I’m behind the wheel of the all-new, 1999 Miata, taking a spirited blast through the car’s natural habitat of canyon roads. First impressions: The new car looks longer and somewhat more sub­stantial. The extra length is largely an illusion (it is 0.3 in. longer, at 155.7in.), no doubt brought on by the ex­posed, almond-shaped headlights reminiscent of the discontinued MX-6. The lamps, which use their reflectors instead of the lens to shape their beams, perch above the classic oval air intake, the single most powerful styling cue. Moving rearward, there’s RX-7-esque sculpting to the bodysides, especially just aft of the front wheel openings, and more rounded door cutlines, another ode to the Wankel-powered car. Above the rear wheels—the car’s “hips” in stylists’ jar­gon—the sheet metal makes a sharper bend to horizontal for an edgier, more defined look. The car terminates in an arched, upswept trunk lid, underscored by taillights that, though roughly the same shape as the original’s, are slim­mer and appear to be set slightly high­er in the tail. To my eye, the least successful de­sign element is that of the 14x6-in. wheels, done up in a sort of generic, sporty-car style. They just don’t set off the body’s curves in the exciting, dy­namic way that the previous car’s Minilite copies did.

Step out of the old car and into the new and you’ll find the same snug seating position, and the same excel­lent relationship of seat, pedals and steering wheel, this last item a beauti­fully crafted, leather-wrapped Nardi 3-spoker whose hub seems too dimi­nutive to house an airbag (it does, though). Taller types will also discover that it’s still necessary to slouch some­what to see traffic lights from under the windshield header. Controls are in roughly the same places as before (the exception: the radio now resides above the climate-control knobs in the center console) and eyeball vents are re­tained, all housed in a smoother, seamless dash that’s obviously evolved from the original’s. Perhaps that dash (and redesigned door panels that now contain inte­grated map pockets) are a touch too slick, lacking the appealing starkness of the original armrests and distinctly two-piece dash and center console. There are other small casualties: The outer door handles, once chrome pieces that appeared to be straight off a 1960’s Alfa Romeo Duetto, are now more conventional, body-color units—no doubt ergonomically supe­rior, but with a lot less charm. One update that no one will grouse about is the new Miata’s heated glass rear window, replacing the zippered plas­tic one that tends to discolor and crack over time. And trunk volume is increased some 20 percent by relocat­ing the spare tire and battery to be­neath the floor. Twist the key, floor the gas and fling the new Miata into one of your best-memorized bends and all is right with the world again. Though our photo car’s spring and damper rates weren’t quite production-finalized, its behavior was impressive, with a more taut feel that communicated more seat-of-the-pants sensation than the old car—and the veteran Miata was already excellent in this regard. Front-suspension geometry changes focused on lowering the roll center and in­creasing the caster trail by moving the upper control arms rearward and the lower ones forward, paying off in a more linear build-up of resistance as the steering wheel is turned. And where the old car had slightly exag­gerated turn-in followed by the sensa­tion that it was yawing around its nose, the 1999 car’s front and rear suspension seem to work together as a more harmonious unit. There’s road feel galore through the steering and the 185/60-14 tires grip tenaciously, yet you can still probe the limits with­out scaring yourself with excess speed.

Simply put, it’s about the purest driv­ing experience you can have with a modern production car. But wait; there’s more—power, that is, bringing the twin-cam 16-valve 1.8-liter inline-4’s output to roughly 140bhp at 6,500 rpm (official figures have yet to be finalized). The 7-bhp gain is realized through a higher compression ratio (from 9.0:1 to 9.5), reprofiled camshafts, a variable-geometry intake manifold and reworked intake and ex­haust ports that are both straighter and larger in diameter. This is still not wheel-spinning, blow-the-tail-loose power, but coupled with a slight re­duction in weight (at 2,245 lb it’s roughly 45 lb lighter than the 1998 car), it may shave a bit off the 0-60-mph time. More important than raw output is the way it’s delivered, though, with a nice, cammy bulge in the powerband and an exhaust system designed to tune out the higher fre­quencies and enhance the lower ones. And the whole experience is incalcula­bly enhanced by a shifter even better than the original’s; reworked synchro sallow the stubby lever to slide into gear even more easily.

So the new Miata is a dynamically improved car in all respects, but aes­thetically, it’s a split decision. Perhaps it’s difficult to immediately love the new car after having such a torrid af­fair with the original. We’ll see what the rest of the world thinks when the new Miata rolls into Mazda show­rooms in the spring, most likely stay­ing beneath the $20,000 threshold for the base car.