V4043 ISBN: 978-1-845840-43-3 Hardback Review for Mazda MX-5 Miata, The book of the world’s favourite sportscar by Jeff Zurschmeide for Mazda Sport Magazine April 2007 US The 800,000th MX-5 Miata just rolled off the assembly line a few weeks ago, so it’s appropriate that there’s a new edition out of the book that chronicles the history of the model. Brian Long’s name on a car book is an absolute guarantee of quality, and his latest epic is no exception. Mazda MX-5 Miata – The Book of the World’s Favourite Sportscar contains everything that a Miata enthusiast could want to know to impress friends and satisfy curiosity. To tell the truth, it contains enough detail to render an obsessive-compulsive Miata freak completely catatonic with information overload. Long’s books are characterized by access to corporate archives and in-depth interviews with the designers, engineers, and executives who actually dreamed, designed, and built the cars. Long consistently gets the kind of deep background information that most auto writers only dream about. If you want to get the real Miata story from the people who were there, pick up this book. Long’s books are also known for their wealth of truly beautiful photos, and this book includes almost 600 photographs, including many never-before-published shots from Mazda’s archives. The book has drawings and pictures of the earliest designs of each version of the car, through the clay models, mock-ups, test mules and finally, the production cars. You can watch each generation of Miata take shape before your eyes as Mazda worked to perfect what would become the most popular ragtop sports car of all time. Long also covers the advertising, media reviews, and sporting history of the car. And he covers these topics not only for the American market, but for Japan, the UK, Europe, Australia, and the world market as well. Every edition, every option, every model year. If you like Miatas, you’re going to want this book. This is the third edition of this particular title – the first came out in 1998 to coincide with the release of the second generation Miata, and the second edition in 2002. This edition covers the design and build of the third-generation MX-5 as well as the Spec Miata phenomenon in North American amateur racing. The book was completed at the end of 2005, so the only feature that isn't in this book is the Power Retractable Hard Top. The book retails for $39.95 in paperback, and $59.95 in hardback, and it’s worth every penny. --