Refreshment comes in many forms. Last night’s cold pint in the Y Pengwern guest house certainly met the criteria. The gale-force weather in north Wales this morning is refreshing, too, albeit less welcome as it tries to strip the hat from my head and turns evo photographer Aston Parrott’s tripod into something from an HG Wells novel. Also being battered by the weather are two rear-wheel-drive, naturally aspirated sports cars with manual gearshifts and small footprints. Paddling alone in a sea of turbocharged hot hatchbacks, there’s something very refreshing about both of them.
In the grey corner is Toyota’s GT86, recently facelifted to mixed effect and still powered by a 1998cc boxer unit with a power figure just shy of 200 horses. Its crisp white opponent is the Mazda MX-5 RF – not, as the roofline suggests, a coupe, but a ‘retractable fastback’. Think 991-generation 911 Targa in both concept and execution, or early-’90s Honda CR-X Del Sol if you’re feeling cruel.
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