Stars Of Goodwood FoS 2012: Mazda MX-5 GT

Yes, Goodwood's Festival of Speed is on and to make you even more jealous, we'll be at the show, so expect to see live tweets and Facebook updates from the Goodwood grounds over the coming days. There'll be plenty of UK debuts and concepts there including the new Aston Martin Vanquish, a Jaguar F-Type prototype, the Peugeot 208 GTI and the revised McLaren MP4-12C. Firstly, lets look at what Mazda are bringing to their stand together with the Takeri Saloon concept and the new CX-5 crossover.

It's the MX-5 that the fans of the legendary roadster have been waiting for, a road going version of the MX-5 GT4 racer. Just like the everyday top-spec car, the GT has a naturally aspirated 2.0-litre petrol engine but power is up from 167bhp to 205bhp.

Being a special edition concept, it has trinkets inside and out and in this case they make the car look much more hairy-chested. As well as the mad two-tone orange and black paint job, there's a carbon splitter at the front and a defuser at the back which, teamed up with the uprated adjustable suspension, should make the car handle even better. There's a tiny little spoiler on the bootlid plus both exhausts have moved from each side of the car to the centre together with more noise production. Hopefully a nice note worth putting the electric hard-top roof down during a blizzard for. Those changes will be put to the test when the car goes up the hill climb against the GT4 racer.

Inside, there are Recaro seats instead of the normal leather ones plus carbon interior bits making this car lighter than the everyday MX-5.

So far, the car is just a concept as Mazda wants to find out what everyone makes of it. It's got the thumbs up from me for sure. I can only think of one little tweak that the final product needs. The face. A cool special edition MX-5 should have a cheeky evil smile. Give those headlights eyebrows or make them look more menacing because that face reminds me of someone that terrifies all men. Is it just me who thinks this?