KPC seems just the right kind of KPI to keep this car in a sweet spot.

REGARDLESS there doesn’t seem to be any direct mention of him in the press blurb, it’s hard to imagine a ‘certain someone’ didn’t substantially influence the biggest update for the evergreen MX-5.

Dave Coleman has been Mazda’s North American vehicle evaluation manager for years. The easy-going Californian goes by the unofficial handle of being this make’s master of technobabble; but really he deserves credit for being one of those guys within this company who has a sweet touch when it comes to suspension tuning.

 When Coleman came to New Zealand in 2016, it was to give shout out for a tweak he’d orchestrated, back then just for the Mazda3, though it’s subsequently spread to other models. The whole idea of G-Vectoring Control was to provide drivers with “greater feel and a more enjoyable experience.”

 Does that sound a bit MX-5-ish? Well, it should. This guy is also America’s Mister Miata. He led the team that worked the suspension on the preceding NC and latest ND generation. He also races an original generation NA. (In fact, Coleman and his wife are so into motorsport their wedding ceremony was held on the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca circuit). He tends to whenever possible employ the MX-5 as a benchmark car for all Mazda model evaluations. Well, maybe save for the BT-50. Crazy? Maybe. But in a good way, surely…

Anyway, now to the point of all this. Mazda has just announced a significant update, coming in 2022 – likely early in the year here – for the two-seater poster child that has always been wholly devoted to improving human-machine communication.

Some say the MX-5 has needed more power. They’re wrong. Others reckon it could do with more grip. Wrong, again. Back in 2016, Coleman reckoned too much of both would spoil the MX-5. Particularly both. He argued grip in the form of lateral acceleration and breakaway character was the prime offender in the modern crimes against driving fun.

So how to achieve cornering finesse? Interestingly, as well as GVC sharpens up front-drive cars, it was not then quite the thing Coleman and his cohorts were chasing with the MX-5.

The basic ideal could be applied, yet there was thought the answer would come from another avenue, one that back then was still being worked on.

 Looks like the job is now complete. The big change for the 2022 edition is the adoption of Kinematic Posture Control (KPC) technology, which is some ways is a GVC that gives the car better nose-in attitude, as GVC does, but by working from the back (as GVC does not).

The shortform descriptive for KPC is that it sharpens the car’s cornering characteristics. More please. Well, says Mazda, “it uses the MX-5’s suspension structure to provide a more integrated and stable turning posture at high speed". This provide a "greater sense of Jinba-ittai.”

If Coleman was here, he’d by now be excitedly drawing on table napkins. But he’s not, so really we’re keen as heck to try this out to get a butt-led feel for the concept.

 Mazda says that, basically, the car has a new rear suspension designed to counteract front-end dive under braking by “(generating) an ‘anti-lift’ force that pulls the vehicle’s body down,” while a brake-based torque vectoring system is claimed to brake the inner rear wheel during high-speed cornering and “suppress roll.”

Mazda says the Kinematic Posture Control system can “determine the turning conditions in real time between the left and right rear wheels” and “increases its activity linearly in response to this to produce an appropriate posture stabilisation effect.”

Don’t worry. It doesn’t make this car too racy for other than the right occasions.

The brand assures there is actually no change to everyday driving situations.

“But the harder the drive becomes, the more the MX-5 sharpens its tail-end senses and cleverly adjusts its own turning posture,” it says.

Other news for 2022 is that the entry 1.5-litre engine has gone; everything from now on runs the 2.0-litre, in same 135kW/205Nm tune it’s had for the past two years. There are some new paint colours and trim effects.

 Arguably, the suspension revision will be the hook; because MX-5 drivers are exactly that. Drivers.

Just when you wondered if it was getting dated, right?