2024 Mazda Miata sales: the Autoblog Miata Index
Welcome to the Autoblog Miata Index — the only automotive sales metric that truly matters, at least in our own minds. What are we doing here, exactly? Well, we’re counting the number of Mazda Miatas sold so far in 2024. Technically, we started by counting the Miata sales from 2023, but you get the idea. Why? Well, we like Miatas, for starters, and as a metric for how many True Believers™ are out there buying cars, it’s as arbitrarily good (or bad) as anything else. So long as folks are still buying our favorite little Japanese roadster, then the enthusiast outlook can’t be all bad, right?
While 2024 is a slow year so far for our favorite roadster, April brought us our first bit of good news: sales of the targa-like RF model actually ticked up last month compared to a year ago. What does that mean for the market? Well, nothing. This is an entirely unscientific thing that we do entirely for our own amusement. And yours, hopefully. Let’s take a look at those April numbers, shall we?
The numbers
April 2024 Miata sales:
Mazda Miata: 368 (-33.5%)
Mazda Miata RF: 493 (+19.1%)
Total: 861 (-11%)
YTD 2024 Miata sales:
Mazda Miata: 825 (-56.5%)
Mazda Miata RF: 1,447 (-12.9%)
Total: 2,272 (-36.1%)
While we could easily blame winter for slow sales, the cold season comes along in the North American winter every year, making that a poor excuse for disappointing numbers. We’ll also note that the RF (which is the folding Targa-style top) has consistently outsold the convertible every month in 2024 so far, which makes sense for the dead of winter; that makes it unlikely that we’re looking at some sort of statistical outlier. Miata sales are simply off to a slow start in 2024.
So far, 2024 is shaping up to be a slower year for Mazda’s little convertible than 2023. Mazda sold 8,973 Miatas in the U.S. last year — an increase of 45.4% over 2022 — and 15.7% over its total volume from 2019. So 2023 was a good year for the Miata — and as it turns out, a pretty darned good year for the industry overall. At this pace, Mazda will only sell about 5,600 Miatas this year. Obviously, there’s room for improvement.
The 2024 Miata gets an updated differential and an overhauled infotainment system that is much more feature-rich and pleasant to use. But updates don’t always translate to sales improvements, especially when they’re accompanied by production downtime to accommodate new parts or designs. Fortunately, while these updates do include new components, they’re not anything wildly different from what’s already shipping, limiting any interruption to manufacturing. Hopefully, that means full steam ahead. Happy Miata-ing!
Note: Yes, this is silly. We’re fully aware it’s silly. This silliness may morph into some other form of silliness for any (or no) reason at all. Watch this space. Or don’t. -Hurd
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