THE MAZDA MX-5 is developed on the principle of Jinba-ittai – horse and rider as one – but what if you want more than one horse?

Mazda Australia has been down this road before with the locally developed MX-5 SP, which strapped a Garrett turbo to the side of the NB MX-5’s 2.0-litre four to give it unheard-of levels of stonk.

Sweet Dream: Mazda MX-5 SP Grey

Sweet Dream: Mazda MX-5 Coupe

The program required the blessing of the MX-5 Project Manager, Takao Kijima, a man who didn’t like having his work meddled with, but it was so good it received the go-ahead in the end.

Sweet Dream: Mazda MX-5 SP Yellow

Suddenly those hairdresser jokes didn’t seem so funny.

Here’s how we’d do it

Donk decision

The obvious choice when it comes to boosting power is to simply add a turbo to the existing 2.0-litre engine, something which tuners like Tunehouse have already done to good effect.

Sweet Dream: Mazda MX-5 SP Blue

Go time

Regardless of the engine choice, you’re looking at a conservative 5.5sec 0-100km/h and mid-13sec quarter, a useful second-or-so improvement over the standard car with far superior roll-on acceleration. Combined with the better brakes, suspension and tyres, lap times would tumble.

Cherry picking

Choosing the suspension modifications is easy, as it’s simply a case of lifting all the gun gear from the race-only MX-5 Cup. These include the clever two-way adjustable Multimatic Dynamic Suspension Spool Valve (DSSV) dampers, which can also be found in the Ford GT supercar.

Brakes are by Brembo with wider high-performance rubber all ’round.

Pick a part

There’s not much to remove inside an MX-5, so we’ll add stuff instead. Recaro bucket seats improve lateral support, there’s Alcantara for the wheel and gearknob and a roll bar for when it all goes pear-shaped.

Dollar dazzler

The original SP wasn’t cheap, carrying a $12,000 premium over the regular MX-5 and we’d once again shoot for a similar price point. Pricey, perhaps, but we reckon even at $55K it wouldn’t be too hard to shift 100 of these pocket rockets.

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