The Mazda Miata Is America’s Most Fun Car—And Its Least Driven

The Answer Is Always Miata (Except When It Isn’t)

As any enthusiast will tell you, the most fun car to drive is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The little roadster delivers the pure joy of driving without the complexity, weight, or price tag of most other drivers’ cars out there. As far as benchmarks go for what driving should feel like, buy a Miata. Except it looks like nobody actually drives them very much. 

A new study by iSeeCars, analyzing over a million three-year-old used cars, found that the Mazda MX-5 Miata is the least driven vehicle in America. With an average of just 5,073 miles per year, the Miata’s figure is less than half the national average of 12,307 miles. The Miata’s hardtop RF version did a little better with 5,375 miles per year, coming in at third place on the list.

You Can’t Put a Number To Smiles Per Mile

The iSeeCars research examined used vehicles sold between November 2024 and April 2025, comparing odometer readings against original prices. The point of the study was to help people better weigh their usage when it comes to budgeting for their next car. For example, the average new car costs $3,593 for every 1,000 miles driven. Compare this to the most driven car, the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, which averages 20,882 miles per year at just $2,280 per 1,000 miles. Or the Miata, which costs owners $6,540 per 1,000 miles. 

What the study shows is that electric vehicles are driven the least and actually end up costing the most per 1,000 miles, while the opposite is true with hybrids, which get driven the most and cost owners the least. The list is dominated by family minivans like the Voyager, Pacifica Hybrid, and Chevrolet Malibu, all exceeding 18,000 miles annually. These practical vehicles (some would even call them boring) are driven nearly four times more than the car everyone claims to want to drive.

When Quality Matters More Than Quantity

The reason for that comes down to the fact that the Miata is usually someone’s second car, reserved for fun on the weekend. When a car is only used a couple of days in a week, for short blasts in the canyons, local cars and coffee meets, autocross events or just cruising, it’s not really going to rack up the miles. With just two seats and not a lot of cargo space, the Miata isn’t really most people’s first choice when it comes to a daily driver. So while the minivans pile on the tedious miles, Miatas are out there giving owners every last bit of joy on every carefully chosen outing.

So, what we have is the perfect formula for driving engagement. Yet people seem to be parking it, letting it hibernate through winter, garaging it while they drive something sensible everyday. The answer is still always Miata, but now we know the question was never about which car to buy when you actually need to drive, not just want to drive.