The evening I drove our 2010 Mazda MX-5 Miata Grand Touring PRHT (which stands for Power Retractable Hard Top, obviously) home was one of those warm September nights, the kind where summer tries hard to hold off fall from coming. On what I thought would be a short trip, I dropped my wife off at the neighborhood book club and turned to head home. But I couldn’t. I just kept driving with the top down, not going very fast or very far, listening to the exhaust note, letting the stars shine in.

So, I can understand how Yutaka Katayama, “Dr. K” of Datsun/Nissan Z-car fame, created something of a stir when he said that the 370Z was “very heavy” and “very expensive.” According to Autoblog, he’d “like to have a sports car like a Miata,” since it’s closer to the elemental 240Z he championed than the current-day Z is.

A CR Top Pick for “Fun to Drive” for multiple years, the Miata recently had a light freshening. We bought one to see what the freshening brought and to find out if the quick-folding hard top adds some top-up calm to the Miata’s interior.

Despite the Miata’s carefree image, our loaded car goes beyond cheap fun. Adding the Premium Package (HIDs, electronic stability control, transponder key, Sirius) to a manual Grand Touring requires you to also buy the Suspension Package (Bilstein shocks, limited- slip differential). All of this set us back $31,150. Another sour note: the only way you can buy stability control on the Miata is to get a loaded Grand Touring version with the Premium Package.

We’ll see if the Miata keeps us smiling as we accumulate break-in miles.

—Tom Mutchler