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Originally Posted by JCZ5
Thank you for your perspective!
So it seems to me the manual transmission gets old as a daily. I'm assuming your M2C is dct now? I regarding the noise level, I can definitely understand.
If you were to only drive your vehicle on the weekends, would the BMW or Miata feel more special to you?
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I've actually only ever test driven the M2 and M2C (both with DCT). So I might not be the best person to answer the "special" factor question for you. That said in my opinion they're both pretty special vehicles.
The ND was created from the ground up as a dedicated platform. The amount of engineering that went into creating the car is truly impressive given the price point. When you drive it you can tell they had a lot of focus on providing a certain set of sensations to the driver. It's pretty raw and wonderfully engaging at sane speeds. It also feels like you're really flying through corners thanks to the purposefully engineered excessive body roll. I've got mixed feelings about that actually. I don't always like the feeling of the car flopping over, and I've modified my previous two Miatas to eliminate some of that. However, in both instances I found that they became less fun through the corners at legal speeds without the extra motion of the body roll. So Mazda clearly was on to something there.
With the M2C I'm really impressed with what they've turned the 2-series into. It weighs so much more than the Miata, but still feels very nimble and eager to be tossed around. The thing that I found on my test drives was that the M2C was very civil and low key when cruising down the highway. Then you toss it through some turns and the fun factor and engagement goes way up. It's certainly more insulated than something like the Miata, and I can see that feeling less "special" to some, but pay attention to the feedback (mostly through the seat IMHO) you get from the car when cornering even at legal speeds and you know it too is a special car.
I'd highly recommend test driving them both and seeing which feels more special to you for a weekend toy. I don't think either is the wrong choice depending on the person. I myself am leaning heavily towards picking up a M2C to replace both my Miata and my daily driver (MK7 VW GTI) this year.