The Mazda Spirit Racing performance brand is a division intended to translate the automaker’s motorsport knowledge into road cars. The Mazda Spirit Racing Roadster is the first to go on sale, and it's, essentially, an MX-5 Miata upgraded for track performance with a price of around $35,000, or around $50,000 for the even more specialized 12R. Those are reasonable-sounding prices, but they're converted from the Japanese yen because the cars aren't yet sold in the US. But how likely are we to get them? After all, Mazda sells thousands of Miata in America every year. We asked Mazda USA representatives, and the answer we got doesn't inspire confidence... Price And Demand Could Be Key Issues "Mazda would need a lot of interest from markets outside of Japan."- Mazda USA representativeThat's the official response we got when Mazda was pressed for comment. But insiders have given us a little more frame of reference for why it might not succeed, and it comes down to pricing, demand, and homologation nightmares.The translation there is that Mazda would need a considerable volume to justify selling the Spirit Racing Roadster in each country at a time. As it is, the Miata is a beloved sports car in the US, but Mazda only sold8,727 of them in 2025, of which only 4,684 were the soft-top Roadster variants. For context, Mazda sold 136,335 of its CX-5 crossover in 2025.MazdaIn Japan, the Spirit Racing Roadster was capped at 2,200 units, and the 12R version limited to 200 units. But, the car is built in Japan, so Mazda can keep the cost down for customers there.Shipping out to the US would add shipping costs, whatever the tariff is at any given moment, then standard taxes over that. Then it also has to meet US emissions standards. The latter requires homologation, and if a model is significantly different from the base trims (specifically in the case of the 12R, which makes nearly 200 horsepower), it wouldn't be able to slip in under the same registration data as the core models.The Spirit Racing Roadster's Japanese price is approximately the same as the US top-spec Grand Toruing ($35,730), but we wouldn't imagine it arriving for anything less than $40,000 if it were brought stateside.Mazda Spirit Racing MX-5 Miata SpecsMSR RoadsterMSR Roadster 12 REngineSkyactiv-G 2.0-liter four-cylinderHorsepower181 hp (183 PS)197 hp (200 PS)Transmission6-Speed ManualLengthUnconfirmed154.1 inchesWidthUnconfirmed68.3 inchesHeightUnconfirmed48.6 inchesThe fact Mazda capped the sales of the Mazda Spirit Racing MX-5 models tells us that the brand wasn't going to make enough profit to justify a full run. Mazda is a brand that likes, but doesn't exploit, special editions. Affordable performance is one of its core underlying values, but by the time it got to the US, Mazda would likely have needed to know it was going to sell in bulk to keep the price down. Would The Mazda Spirit Racing Roadster Be Worth A Premium? MazdaBy the time it got to the USA, it would get expensive. Any number we come up with is a guess, but with what we know, our best guess would be around $50,000, perhaps even more, which becomes a value for money issue. At its core, the Mazda Spirit Racing Roadster is an MX-5 with Brembo brakes, tuned Bilstein height-adjustable dampers, a reinforced tunnel brace, aerodynamic elements developed through Mazda’s Super Taikyu endurance racing program, and an Alcantara trimmed cabin.Among other things, the 12R version adds forged RAYS wheels, a serial-numbered engine cover, and takes the MX-5's 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine's power up to 197 horsepower versus 181 in regular models, and would be much more expensive than the Spirit Racing Roadster. On paper, the performance upgrades could be replicated using the aftermarket but, in reality, the Mazda Spirit Racing MX-5 models are road legal, but factory tuned for the track.Another reality is that this is the first product from Mazda Spirit Racing, and most likely a dry run. Mazda doesn't believe enough people would buy a Mazda Spirit Racing MX-5 in the US now for the price it would cost here, but it will certainly be watching the response to the models on a global scale, and continuing to work out the economies of scale. Mazda Spirit Racing has also shown a car based on the Mazda 3, which would likely be a higher volume car as hot hatches generally sell better than two-door sports cars. Perhaps that will be the first Mazda Spirit Racing car to reach the US. We hope so.
