This Mazda MX-5 NA rests somewhere like a forgotten relic – though it is probably just someone’s simple weekend joy.
There’s a Mazda MX-5 acting like a rebel in the ever-increasing modern tech world that Singapore is trying to push to become.
In the country’s push to modernize and pioneer itself with open arms for the latest new industries, we have lost so much pieces of the past. You’ve heard it from me, you’ve heard it from older gentlemen, you’ve heard it all – we lose buildings, we lost culture, we lost cars, what’s new?
It just won’t matter how good the car is – we are a market so open to everything that Singapore used to be considered one of the most diverse car markets in the SEA region – yet we keep nothing. Even the ultra-high end things have left the country.
But somehow, the mundane, the desired, the unappreciated – some stay. Holiday special, irreplaceable workhorse, worth renewing – one of many possible reasons that they stick around for just a little longer than their peers.
This MX-5… a factory hardtop, original 14-inch alloys with tyres from 2014 and a RS Aizawa front bumper. The first and last I would guess are worth some cash nowadays, but I don’t think the owner of this car would have been after money.
There was a note left inquiring if it was for sale. It is after all what some enthusiasts would call neglected – worn paint, minor dings and damage, the minor and major things that doesn’t say pristine, which some people would consider selling at such a condition.
Once upon a time, this car was in a sheltered carpark somewhere in an industrial area. Around the last few years was it loosely spotted parked along the road somewhere but hardly pinpointed. To some, it just vanished from that industrial carpark and hasn’t been seen since.
Here at an undisclosed street, its like a time capsule. It could be the only NA MX-5 in Singapore under the Off-Peak Car (OPC) registration scheme – a registration scheme which restricted general use for lower registration costs, hence the red plate. So-called “weekend” category of the time, which would set one back around S$83,027 around 1991, or S$98,300 for the normal scheme.
When local magazine Torque pitted the NA MX-5 against two other British marques back in 1990 or so, namely the TVR S3 and Lotus Elan SE (the one behind it), the MX-5 was the weakest car of the trio, making just 113 horsepower and 136Nm of torque with a hundred kilometre per hour sprint of 9.5 seconds. Still, as history has showed, only this foreign outsider has survived in the British playing field of the original sports car.
While I was looking around the MX-5, another red NA drove past – target timing, I reckon.
The road tax registry calls it a MX-5 M5, likely corresponding to the Manual 5-speed transmission that it had. I faintly recall that there are automatic first-generations in Singapore as well. These early 1990s MX-5s were almost exclusively sold as a 1.6-litre, while supposedly 1.8-litre units were sold in the country when the model was facelifted globally. As I hear from another owner (of said 1.8-litre), there is only one surviving unit left.
Across a check back in 2023, we recorded 41 remaining first-generation MX-5s. Its a high number for a black-plate classic, which will come to increase with new classic registrations entering Singapore, plus timely incentive to convert the cars to classic as they reach 35 years old.
This one’s history remains a bit of a mystery, given the state is mostly what some can say “abandoned”. I spoke with a passing resident and he didn’t know about the backstory either, stating it suddenly appeared.
A few months after and having returned to the same place by sheer coincidence for a work event with a colleague – there it was again, now shifted directions. Its just a curiosity of what this car’s current state of affairs is – though it is probably someone’s weekend toy that doesn’t see the speed limit.
But now that I’m temporarily here again, we’re just missing that TVR S3 I referenced earlier for a full shoot, are we?
~Efini
Gallery:
*Photos taken 5 May 2025, 29 July 2025
Read more: SG Archives: Subaru Impreza 1.5M
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