"At that time, they had done some sketches and they had done one
preliminary clay model based on a very crude package of the old GLC
rear-wheel-drive stationwagon," Garrett recalls.
obody's happier
that Vince Tidwell has a chic, red Mazda Miata in his garage than
Tidwell's former college roommate, Norman Garrett III. It is the
two-seat convertible sports car they dreamed about as Tech students. And
Garrett, as layout engineer for the Miata, had a hand in seeing that
the highly-touted sports car was specifically made for Vince.
What Garrett didn't anticipate is the breadth of rave reviews the Miata has received in automotive magazines, or how it has caught the fancy of the American public. But it was his ambition to build a roadster with "fire in its soul."
"Vince was the target customer in my mind," Garrett explains. "My job for six years was to get that car in his garage. He was my checklist. Every time we would be in a meeting and someone would say, 'Does a person need a hardtop?' I'd say, 'Yeah, Vince needs a hardtop.' He was a clear personification of the target customer. The ghost of Vince was at a lot of meetings."
Garrett couldn't have picked a tougher customer. Tidwell is an engineer who knows the ins and outs of sports cars, having owned Triumphs, MGs and Porsches. It was their mutual passion for European- styled-and-engineered sports cars that bonded their friendship at Tech. During their student days, Garrett owned a Porsche and Tidwell a TR7. Both were members of the Georgia Tech Sports Car Club and both helped build a hydrogen car in 1979-80 in the national Student Competition on Relevant Engineering.
Tidwell, who graduated in mechanical engineering in 1980, joined McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis. He returned to Atlanta, earned an MBA from Georgia State, and is a senior project engineer with Selmix Alco. Garrett graduated in mechanical engineering in 1981 and went to work for Subaru. There he unsuccessfully tried to convince Subaru's management to build a sports car.
"I had an MGA at the time and kept it at Subaru. Every time I would see an executive, I'd say, 'You know, we ought to build one of these.' I actually went so far as to sketch out a layout using the Subaru engine because it's a flat four-cylinder--very easy to adapt to a nice, low, sports car. But it didn't get past the watercooler conversation stage there."
At Mazda, Bob Hall, a former automotive journalist who was product planner, had better success. Garrett observes, "He's the guy that said, 'In 1979 MG sold 45,000 cars. In 1981 they sold zero. The market didn't go away, the car did.'" Mazda decided to let Hall unofficially explore the concept of building a British-style sports car. Garrett was hired on Aug. 1, 1983, as layout engineer.
"At that time, they had done some sketches and they had done one
preliminary clay model based on a very crude package of the old GLC
rear-wheel-drive stationwagon," Garrett recalls.
"It was a very off-line project. The difference between on-line and offline projects with Mazda is that offline means unofficial, not funded, but if you've got some time, you can go look at it. And that is really where some of the great ideas came from.
"The Miata was a real opportunity for me because I had been a motorhead since the day I could read," Garrett adds. "I had always wanted to do a sports car. At the time I joined Mazda, I had owned about 30 cars, of which probably 20 had been English sports cars. So when somebody said, 'Do a sports car,' it was a natural thing for me to say, 'That's the one thing I know how to do.'"
In addition to Garrett and Hall, the only other American involved with the Miata project at that stage was designer Mark Jordan, who is also a sports car enthusiast.
"I feel that Bob, Mark and I knew more about how to design something like the Miata than any other group," Garrett says. "Singularly, there were a lot of people who knew how to do that, but none of them worked together for a company that could build the thing."
arrett spent
about 10 percent of his time in Japan working with Mazda engineers.
In all, some 75 key engineers and personnel, predominantly Japanese, were involved in the Miata project.
"We had a sense of--'Hey, this is a unique opportunity.' For me as an engineer, I knew I would have had to be 50 years old and have been at GM the whole time to have had that kind of influence on a car--to have the chief hard-design guys sitting across the table and listening to you and taking notes on what you think a sports car ought to be. Of course, the Japanese are very good at thatÄ not that my ideas were unique, but they listened to everyone and picked what they felt were the best ideas."
Garrett has a philosophy about what makes a great car.
"I made a speech to a bunch of Japanese gentlemen--the basic development teams working on the Miata. It was a philosophical statement about how the great cars of the past--Porsche, Lotus, Ferrari, Lamborghini-- were designed by one man with a dominating personality and one dream of what the car should be like. It was not done by committee. Our biggest complaint at the Mazda think tank was that all Japanese cars are done by committees and computers--and they look like it, act like it, and feel like it. That's why they don't have the kind of loyalty that an MG might have.
"My statement was that we, as a team of people, have to think like one person, and somehow we have to figure out how to get a common fire in our gut and common love for this concept and build this car true to that love. I think those embers really caught fire in Japan. And those guys as engineers really got behind it. That is why the car is not really a typical Japanese car--because it has so much fire in its soul."
The first Miata was unveiled for inspection last February and the reviews have been full of praise. Motor Trend magazine called it "the best sports car buy in America." Road & Track rated it as one of the five best cars in the world. Car and Driver called Miata "delightful" and a resurrection of "those barnstorming sports car times in one spectacular, up-to-date package."
The car also won acclaim in Time, and in other automotive magazines including Autoweek, Sports Car International, Automotive Industries and Automobile Magazine.
Tidwell is so pleased with the Miata that he not only owns one, but he stepped down as an executive with the BMW Car Club of America to become president of the Miata Club of America. The club, endorsed by Mazda, was founded by Garrett who also publishes a club magazine.
idwell was not
unaware that his former roommate was working on the Miata. Garrett
contacted him and they maintained regular correspondence, exchanging
micro-cassette tapes discussing the characteristics of an ideal sports
car.
"The Miata is the most exciting sports car to appear on the scene in more than a decade," Tidwell says. "It's a car that comes from the heart."
The goal of Mazda was to build the Miata as an "affordable sports car." The sticker price is approximately $14,000, but because demand is outstripping production, some dealers are selling the cars several thousand dollars above sticker price.
Despite the Miata's reasonable price, Garrett says, "The beauty of it is that the car, in its execution, is not a cheap car. The thing that is most satisfying to me is that it has really good engineering.
"If you blindfolded me and read the specs off to me--other than the cylinders--I would have thought you were describing a Ferrari Daytona, which is one of the greatest sports cars ever made," Garrett says. "The Miata's basic layout and structure are very similar. The level of technology in the Miata is equal to that or greater than the original Porsche 911. It's an extremely sophisticated car."
A native of Greensboro, N.C., Garrett lived in Irvine, Calif., while working on the Miata. But after the birth of the first of their two children two years ago, Garrett and his wife resumed to Greensboro, where he is senior product planning analyst for Volvo-GM Heavy Truck Corp. As the publisher of Miata club magazine, he remains close to the project.
"We kind of had a feeling of destiny when we were doing the Miata," Garrett says. "We didn't think it would sell like this, but we knew it would be popular. We knew we'd love it. We really built it as a car we selfishly wanted for ourselves."
Transmission--5-speed manual gearbox, fully synchronized, mounted behind engine and driving rear wheels; final drive ratio 4.30:1.
Suspension--Front, independent with A-arms, coil springs, tube shocks, anti-roll bar; rear, independent with A- arms, coil springs, tube shocks anti-roll bar.
Brakes--9.3-inch ventilated disc front, 9.1-inch disc rear. 2,182 pounds.
Performance--acceleration, 0-60 mph in 8.6 seconds, quarter-mile in 16.6 seconds, reaching 85 mph, maximum speed 117 mph; estimated fuel consumption (EPA estimates) 25/35 mpg.