Happy MX-5 Day! Don’t Drink & Play

Although today is St. Patrick’s Day, there is a celebration of another sort going on among the gaming community thanks to Mazda and Microsoft: The 2016 MX-5 Miata, which won’t launch in the U.S. until this summer (although it went into production March 5 at the Mazda Ujina Plant #1 in Hiroshima), is being made available today, for FREE, at least digitally for the Forza Horizon 2 on Xbox One.

The 2016 model is joined with other Miatas of the past in the MX-5 pack. Also included are the 2010 MX-5, Super20 SEMA concept car, 1990 MX-5, and the 2005 MAZDASPEED MX-5.

(For those of you who may be interested in the game, long into Xbox Live on your Xbox One, then go to the Mazda landing page.)

For those of you who are interested in the car from the standpoint of physical reality, know that Mazda has announced, for the first time, the curb weight of the 2016 car. With a manual transmission, it comes in at 2,332 lb. With an automatic, 2,381 lb. By way of comparison, a 2015 MX-5 with an automatic weighs 2,542 lb. A Sport manual 2,480 and the other trims 2,511 lb. This lightweighting is part of the SKYACTIV Technology initiative that Mazda is pursuing across the line.

For those of you who are interested in games and the physical reality of the 2016 MX-5, know that starting today, until Thursday April 30, there is a “Time Trial Rivals Contest” running, and the grand prize, which will be awarded in June, is a real car. (To participate you’ve got to log into Xbox Live through an Xbox One console, go to the Games, Music, Movies, or Apps channel, click into a Mazda MX-5 ad, then register and. . .at that point you should get it. And if you want a car, you’ll figure it out.)