Easy Street: The 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata's New Top

With its redesign for 2016, Mazda’s roadster lost its available power hardtop. It’s easy to be impressed by the complex dance of metal panels that happens when a power-retractable hardtop is opening or closing, but there’s something equally impressive in the elegant simplicity of the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata’s new manual soft-top. It’s one of the easiest manual tops we’ve used in a long time.

Related: 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata: First Drive

Part of what makes it so easy to use is that you don’t have to leave the driver’s seat to lower or raise the top. “You can drop the top in a single one-handed swoop, and raise it just as easily,” said Joe Bruzek, Cars.com road test editor. “I’d take this over any slow-moving power top with its lightness and one-step raise and lower process.”

The top also has a neat trick when it’s time to put it back up. “Most impressive is how the stowed top is spring-tensioned to pop up several inches when you pull a handle over your inboard shoulder to raise it to the closed position,” said Cars.com Executive Editor Joe Wiesenfelder. “This makes it possible to grab it while seated and throw it forward without tearing a rotator cuff or, presumably, bending the seat’s backrest frame.

“On the other hand, lowering the top when seated requires a little more contortion than it once did, as you now have to lock it down into its integrated tonneau position,” he added.

The lowered top’s sleek look complements the roadster’s design and, as in the prior-generation Miata, it retracts into a dedicated well behind the seats. Most convertible tops take up some of the available trunk space when lowered, but the Miata’s 4.6-cubic-foot trunk isn’t compromised when the top is down.

The Miata is a car that’s best experienced with the top down. The roadster’s quick-acting soft-top helps you do that more often since it’s so easy to go from open-air to closed-roof motoring in seconds if the weather turns nasty. Well done, Mazda.