THE FUTURE OF CLASSIC MOTORING
The MX-5 is arguably one of the heralds of the next generation of classic sports car and synthetic fuel is being proposed as the way we power that generation. But what’s it like to drive?
Mankind has a solid history of brewing; indeed, our ability to combine elements in a receptacle, leave for a while and then return to a potable liquid capable of kindling joy is a defining character of us as a nation. So it should come as no surprise that we found a way of brewing up a replacement when faced with the growing obsolescence of petrol derived from pre-historic organic matter.
Coryton is a company that sits at the fore of this industry and will sell you its product through a conventional pump. Its most readily available product, SUSTAIN 80, is a synthetic fuel in which the carbon that makes its hydrocarbons comes from a sustainable source, which means a sharp reduction in the use of fossil fuels for a greener approach to gassing up. Coryton has already made a name for itself in the classic rally scene, fuelling most of the entrants in last year’s Rally for the Ages and Tony Jardine’s assault on the Roger Albert Clark rally later in the year.
It’s well proven on the road and on the rally stage; in fact Mazda for one is so confident in its product that its UK heritage fleet is fuelled solely by SUSTAIN 80. Which brings us to the classic we’ll be running on it – the MX-5.
ANTIQUATED POWER PRODUCTION
The week that we’d arranged to spend with the MX-5 coincided with some of the foulest weather that January could possibly have conjured up. Unperturbed, I loaded my camera up and slid down into the scooped driver’s seat. The inline ‘four’ coughed into life at the first turn of the key and settled to a slightly lumpen idle before smoothing out as it warmed through.
You sit low with your feet set out ahead of you, the wheel set high and a letterbox windscreen framing your view forwards. I pointed the green roadster south, weaving out of the town and onto the winding B-roads of the Romney marshes, the coast my final destination.
The MX-5’s twin-cam fizzes and growls under load and the whole car pivots around the driver; you can actually feel its rotation about your hips. Apply lock to the wheel and you feel it nose it actively. Confident inputs are rewarded by active detail abo
