Designer Imagines The Miata Hot Hatch That Never Happened

Whenever a car company releases a convertible sports car, there’s a question that people will inevitably ask: “What would it look like if it had a hard top?” That question may also be accompanied by complaints about convertibles being noisy, heavy, and not as structurally stiff as a fixed-roof car, but that’s beside the point. Every once in a while, a company will indulge the idea of a fixed-roof version of its roadster. BMW had one of the most memorable answers to that question with the Z3 Coupe, which was more of a hatchback, and was affectionately referred to as the “clown shoe.” It’s memorable enough that a designer named Davide Virdis applied the idea to a contemporary of the Z3, the first-generation Miata. As it turns out, the Miata would’ve taken to the hatchback conversion even better than its German rival.

The Hot Hatch We Wish We Got

It’s amazing how natural this design looks. It probably helps that the original Miata, while fairly rounded and curvy, has just enough straight lines that the boxier greenhouse doesn’t look strange. Virdis didn’t go crazy with the hatchback design. Like with the Z3, Virdis simply extending the roofline a bit, and giving a slight forward lean to the rear pillar, and it was perfect. He also lowered it, added a tasteful body kit, and a set of Mazdaspeed MS-02 Rays wheels, which bring it all together in a beautiful 1990s hypothetical.

Mazda Never Did A Hatch, But It Has Done Hardtops

While we would’ve loved to see this Miata hatchback in reality, Mazda has been experimenting with steel-roof Miatas for decades now. You’re probably familiar with a couple of them. The company is still selling the Miata RF, which stands for “retractable fastback.” Its swoopy flying buttresses give it an extremely distinctive roofline, though it also restricts some of the openness of the car when driving with the top down. Those pillars remain in place, and only the targa panel on top and the rear window end up stored in the back. Still, it’s seriously stylish and just as fun as the other Miatas.

The previous-generation of Miata with a solid roof was the PRHT, which stood for power retractable hardtop. It was closely shaped to only go over the cabin, and also take up as little space in the back as possible. As a result, it looked a tad strange with the top up. Still, it offered the fully open feeling of the soft-top and the additional sound insulation and security of a coupe, entirely in one package.

The car you may not be familiar with is the second-generation Roadster Coupe. It was only offered in Japan, and it was a true coupe. It had a steel roof and pillars that were part of the unibody, and it was not removable. It wasn’t quite a full fastback, and it didn’t really add much added cargo capacity. In true coupe fashion, it also only had a trunk, not a hatchback. Not many were made, and clearly Mazda didn’t feel like it was enough of a success to continue pursuing, but it’s a neat deviation from the Miata norm, especially having come from the factory that way.