Is The Miata A Good First Car

I recently had a friend who has a 15 year-old ask me that. Below is my response. I know there was a thread over in the Miata.net forums about the very subject, but I couldn’t find it. Somehow I overloaded the search capacity of the forum by putting the word Miata in my search string. Go figure. If you can think of any I missed, good or bad, add them in the comments.

I think a Miata is a terrific first car, but I might be a little biased. 🙂

First a couple of good reasons.

  1. No back seat. This decreases peer pressure to get the driver to do something stupid by 2/3rds. It also decreases in car distractions by the same amount.
  2. A Miata is not a very powerful automobile, if he ever decides to “see what she’ll do” he will be hard pressed to get it to 90MPH coming down the High Rise.
  3. The Miata is a very safe automobile and can take a lot of abuse while protecting it’s contents.
  4. It is also highly maneuverable and won’t roll over like a SUV with it’s high center of gravity.

Now a couple reasons why it wouldn’t make a good first car.

  1. While safer than an SUV it is small and can be overlooked by inattentive SUV drivers.
  2. In some circles a Miata is stereotyped as a girlie or a gay car. This is mostly fueled by uniformed muscle car or pickup truck drivers. (It’s a running gag over on the Miata.net forums.)
  3. It is rear wheel drive, which lends itself to being used for drifting.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 498

2 Comments

  1. A couple comments both for and against:

    For: an older Miata won’t break the bank when it comes to cost. No blindspots when the top is down.

    Against: when the top is up, you have a HUGE blindspot.
    In addition to inattentive SUV drivers, you will also only come up to the lug nuts on the wheels of semitrailers when on the highway.

  2. Mike C

    I have had two daughters who drove Miatas as first cars. They are reliable, economical and fun. They are small cars, so there is an increased risk of injury in an accident. If most driving to/from school is on the highway or around large trucks, I would not recommend this as a first car. However, if most driving is in town (slower traffic and smaller vehicles), then it is a great car to learn in. I really like the fact that it can only carry one additional passenger. That may be the best safety feature of all for a new driver.

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