The Mazda MX-5 Miata has been subjected to a wide range of engine swaps from motorcycle engines all the way up to V12s.  One of the early V6 swaps was sanctioned by Mazda and almost reached niche production.  The division responsible for this project was M2 Incorporated.  In the early 1990s, Mazda established the skunkworks divison called M2 Incorporated and tapped the project lead of the Miata, Masakatsu Kato to head it up.  The initial goal of the division, which was called “Mazda Two” internally was to complete research and development and perform appearance upgrades on current models but they went a bit further than that.

The M2 team was staffed with some of the best Mazda performance engineers including Hirotaka Tachibana who worked on the suspension and handling of the second generation RX-7 as well as the Miata.  M2 was different from many of the current factory tuners because their R&D facilities were open to the public.  They were stationed in their own modernist building separate from Mazda headquarters and had an open showroom to interact with enthusiasts.  The special part about this division is that they brought models they were developing down into the showroom and spoke with enthusiasts to get their opinion on what should be changed and upgraded.

The division worked on about 30 concepts until it was shut down in 1995.  During that time they were able to bring 3 of the concepts to production and sold around 800-900 examples.  The models which ended up in production were the  M2-1001, M2-1002, and M2-1028.  These models were interesting in their own right and will be covered in the second part of this series.  One of the most unique concepts was the M2-1006 “CobraSter”.  It received the nickname “CobraSter” as the engineers thought of it as a modern day Shelby Cobra.

It was heavily modified starting with the engine which was swapped to the 3.0-liter V6 unit from the Mazda 929 which produced 220 horsepower at the time.  In order to put the increased power to the ground, the rear differential along with the rest of the rear subframe and suspension were replaced with units from the RX-7.  Completing the package were wider fenders along with 245 width rear tires.  Two of these vehicles were produced and the enthusiast reaction was very good but in the end it wasn’t as fun as the designers wanted and there were too many modifications for it to make financial sense to Mazda so the model was canned.  Stay tuned for part two where we cover some more wacky concepts along with the models that actually got produced.
[Title Image: Mazda Motor Corporation]
[M2Building – Image: Flickr – C.C. License 2.0]
[Bottom Image – Minkara]
[Source: Mazda MX-5 Miata: The Book of the World’s Favourite Sportscar By Brian Long and Takao Kijima]