The Mazda Miata would not be my first choice for a road trip car. Would probably be in the bottom 10, in fact. The interior fits me like a coffin, the seats pinch my back and the amount of passenger legroom is laughable. It's not exactly the most serene car, either.
But hey, there are sadists out there who may want to venture somewhere in it. I work with some of them. So, as they were the ones who requested this, here is the answer to the question: how much luggage fits in the Miata's trunk?
Alright, so on paper, the Miata RF has 4.48 cubic-feet of trunk volume. The regular soft top Miata, the one you should absolutely get instead, has 4.59. Does that different matter? Probably not.
However, when talking about trunks in this diminutive size range, the shape is the ultimate factor. For instance, the Porsche 911's 4.6-cubic-foot frunk is basically the same as the Miata's, yet it's narrower and deeper. My BMW Z3's trunk is 5 cubic-feet, yet it's wider, longer and much shallower. On paper, they'd seem to be the same, but you can't fit the same items within them.
Usually, I'd now list all the bags I have to test, but dude, in the words of Jay Mohr in "Go" ...
Here's what I could fit ...
This bag is 26 inches long, 16 wide, 11 deep and you'd have to check it in at the airport (remember those?!?). It BARELY fit inside the Miata. The ever-so-slightly larger gray version of this bag I have did not fit.
By contrast, it slid very easily into my
Z3 and as you can see (below left), the remaining area was far more easily accessed due to the wider trunk opening. However, this bag wouldn't fit at all in the 911's frunk as the space isn't wide or long enough.
Alternatively, shown above, I could stack two carry-on roller bags (one 24L x 15W x 10D, the other 23L x 15W x 10D). This time, the tight fit came from height.
By contrast, these two would fit with room to spare in the deep 911 frunk
as Zac Palmer discovered with his similarly sized bags (below left). They also fit in my Z3 (below right), but were side-by-side and just BARELY fit due to the trunk's much shallower depth. Basically, the Z3 was worst here.
In other words, if we were ranking these three cars that theoretically have equal trunk volumes (Miata, Z3 and 911), the order would differ depending on what you were carrying.
Here's one more data point: grocery bags. By relying more on depth than length or width, you'd have to stack bags atop each other in the Miata and 911. That's bad for eggs, bread and bananas. The wider and longer Z3, on the other hand, can safely carry a shocking number of grocery bags (many a Target run has proven this).
So there you have it, that's what can fit in a Miata's trunk.
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