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About a decade ago I had hoped that auto makers would relent in their abuse of the word “icon.” Instead it got worse. Ladies and gentlemen, the iconic Lincoln Navigator, and so forth.
The word they grope for is canonical. The Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster, now nearly three decades in production, belongs to the canon of great cars—inimitable, essential and timeless, a Hall of Famer. And every time I take delivery of one I’m reminded what an outlier it is. There are no other cars quite like the MX-5—a wee four-cylinder roadster…