The Mazda Miata MX-5 RF wasn't a car we were asking for - but we loved it anyway

Matthew DeBord/BI

PROS: It's still the same old Miata, but its hardtop makes for a more versatile ride. It's brilliant to drive and is less noisy than the soft-top. All in all, it's an incredible cost-to-joy ratio.

CONS: It's still sort of underpowered and sort of noisy. It has an awkward infotainment system setup.

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The Mazda Miata is the platonic idea of a fun car to drive. The original MX-5 roadster, which arrived at the tail-end of the 1980s, brought back the classic, unadorned, open-air motoring experience, minus the iffy reliability of the British MGs and Triumphs from the 1960s and 1970s.

Fans of the simple pleasures of driving loved those rides, so the Miata was welcomed with a passion almost never seen in the automotive world. And that enthusiasm has endured for decades. We're now up to the fourth generation of the MX-5, and the core DNA is unchanged, although Mazda dropped weight from the Miata and returned the design to its roots, making the new car look more like a roadster and less like a convertible sports car.

After the fresh soft-top hit the market, Mazda pulled the cover off a retractable hardtop version, the RF, whose shape was less roadster than fastback coupé. Fans were excited. I was concerned: Would messing with a winning formula and adding extra weight to a car that's supposed to be light by design undermine what has always made the Miata magnificent?

Mazda let us borrow a $34,310 MX-5 RF Grand Touring to find out: