• Not often seen as of late, this sporty Mazda hails from a time when sports activities coupes had been plentiful.
• The second-gen MX-6 debuted for 1993 alongside its platform mate, the Ford Probe.
• The Mazda’s exterior and inside design had been totally unrelated to the Ford’s, and the MX-6 nonetheless appears to be like good 30 years later.

Within the winter of 1992, Automobile and Driver gathered collectively 5 sports activities coupes for a comparability take a look at, this on the heels of an earlier take a look at within the yr that featured 10 rivals. Held right now, such an try would boil all the way down to a fratricidal battle between the Toyota GR86 and the Subaru BRZ. However within the Nineties, coupe followers had precise selection.

Up for public sale on Convey a Trailer—which, like Automobile and Driver, is a part of Hearst Autos—is a type of automobiles, a 1993 Mazda MX-6 LS completed in verdant Hunter Inexperienced Mica, and it has an extremely low 13,000 miles on the clock. It’s an endangered species from a time that looks like simply 10 years in the past—however was truly three a long time.

The second-gen Mazda MX-6 and its sibling, the Ford Probe, had been front-wheel-drive coupes constructed alongside one another at a joint-venture plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. Each had been obtainable with both a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine or a buttery-smooth 2.5-liter V-6. This LS instance is the latter, though that 164-hp six is paired with a four-speed automated transmission. The dearth of a rear spoiler emphasizes the slippery and stylish form of the MX-6. In its day, this automobile may need been the each day driver parked subsequent to a high-strung RX-7 twin-turbo.

Of the 2 siblings, the Probe was the extra dynamically aggressive, with bigger wheels, stickier tires, stiffer springs, and a thicker entrance anti-roll bar. As such, it gained that aforementioned comparability take a look at, whereas the MX-6, criticized for being too mushy, got here in final. Thirty years later, although, this MX-6 appears to be like like the perfect weekend cruiser to take to your native Radwood-themed automobile meet. Odds are, nobody could have seen an MX-6 in ages, not to mention one this effectively preserved.

The MX-6 can be a type of automobiles with an unlimited quantity of unlockable potential. If Mazda softened the suspension for broader attraction, it didn’t maintain again on the chassis. It is a automobile engineered by the identical folks because the NA Miata and the RX-7, and throwing just a few aftermarket tuning bits at an MX-6 could make it loads fast.

As it’s, this automobile is a time capsule, and given its situation, it should not be meddled with. For individuals who keep in mind the heyday of sports activities coupes, seeing this dark-green magnificence swooshing alongside on a Sunday morning will set off a tsunami of nostalgia. As soon as upon a time, the roads had been teeming with inexpensive sport coupes—sensible, enjoyable, and stylish. These days are long gone. However this is your probability to relive them—or to see what they had been all about.

Contributing Editor

Brendan McAleer is a contract author and photographer primarily based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British cars, got here of age within the golden period of Japanese sport-compact efficiency, and started writing about automobiles and folks in 2008. His explicit curiosity is the intersection between humanity and equipment, whether or not it’s the racing profession of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught each of his younger daughters shift a guide transmission and is grateful for the excuse they supply to be perpetually shopping for Sizzling Wheels.