Romancing The Roadster

Once in a great while, an automaker creates a car that sends rivals into a + funk and motorists into a covetous swoon. Right now that vehicle is Mazda's new MX-5 Miata, a curvaceous, two-seat convertible that is intended to combine the look and feel of mid-century roadsters with the reliability of modern engineering. The first few thousand Miatas began arriving at Mazda dealerships earlier this month, and sold out instantly.

Thanks to unusually passionate praise from car-buff magazines, the Miata is by far the most talked-about new auto on the market. Road & Track named it one of the five...