MX5 deffinatly ticks many of the boxes.
Mine is an 18 years old MK1, i’ve done just under 100,000 miles in mine since i bought it in 2006 (car is showing 171,000 on the clock) – have gone road tripping around Europe in it with the wife, have gone camping too with her and the 5. boots plenty big enough once you take the space saver tyre out – since it says on the wheel its not to be used on a steering wheel, or on a driving wheel, on a RWD car thats impossible.
Rust to the sills between the rear wheel and the door can be a problem – usually just the outer skin of metal, but its caused by blocked drainage channels from the soft top, so when you see the bubbling, its too late, the panel has rusted from the inside out (and affects pretty much all MX5s at some point) costs around £500 to get sorted properly (asking on MX5 enthuisast sites will get you a local body shop who will do good work, as the cheaper jobs dont last and you end up paying to have it sorted again soon!)
For me, i love the Mk1 but they are getting very old now (cheap tho at around £1-2k) a Mk2.5 which i think is from around 2002, i think, till the Mk3 was introduced is a good model to go for.
Mk3s if you can find one with the Ebach springs factory upgrade fitted, this is the original suspension fitted outside of the EU which brings the stance of the car down an inch or so, bringing the suspension geometry back into factory guidelines.
It was found that to meet EU bonnet height laws raised suspension was fitted, but the suspension geo wasnt changed, so the raised suspension threw out the camber angles and blunted the handling.
