Rooted in Fun

Which descendant of postwar two-seaters is today's best budget-friendly sports car? TOYOTA GR86 VS. MAZDA MX-5 MIATA

- RICH CEPPOS

2nd Place: Mazda Miata

Plus Eager engine, playful chassis, often requires SPF 30.

Minus Wobbly in hard cornering, pricey BBS Recaro package, who hid the glovebox?

1st Place: Toyota GR86

Plus Easily exploitable handling, plenty of zip, surprising practicality.

Minus That grinding sound is the engine, clunky-looking dash, the only thing noisier is a Miata.

If the Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Toyota GR86 were on the show Finding Your Roots, both would trace their ancestry back to wispy midcentury European roadsters. Over the decades, many of those Old World sports cars died out or evolved into bigger and more complex things, leaving only Mazda and Toyota (and Subaru, maker of the GR86's twin, the BRZ) building basic, pareddown, inexpensive sports cars that deliver old school fun.

If that's what you're after, your search starts and ends here. The GR86-substitute the BRZ if you prefer Subarus-and the Miata are the only remaining descendants on the affordable branch of the rear-wheel-drive sports-car family tree. Each is a hoot to drive, but which one is the better starter sports car?

To find out, we corralled the most aggressive and exciting versions of those two models: the GR86 Premium and an MX-5 Miata Club convertible. Their standard equipment is similar small, high-revving naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine; six-speed manual transmission; summer tires. Both are rear-wheel drive, like the sports cars of old. In search of purity, for this comparison test, we selected the Miata soft top over the retractable-hardtop RF model.