Rocketeer Cars NC Miata V6 Swap: 300 HP, £25,000
The NC Miata has always been the generation that purists love to dismiss — too heavy, too soft, too far from the original Lotus Elan spirit that made the NA legendary. Rocketeer Cars, the British restomod specialist that built its reputation on V6 heart transplants for NA and NB roadsters, just made the most compelling argument yet that those critics had it exactly backwards.
The company has completed its first NC conversion, dropping a Ford Duratec-based Jaguar AJ30 3.0-liter V6 into the Mk3 MX-5 and extracting 300 hp and 265 lb-ft of torque in the process. The car makes its public debut at Goodwood Revival this weekend, September 20–22, and it arrives with a specific engineering argument: the NC’s extra size and weight, long held against it, are precisely what made this conversion possible without compromising the car Mazda built.
Why The NC’s ‘Flaws’ Made It The Right Platform
Rocketeer didn’t choose the NC because it was the easiest generation to work with. It chose it because the platform could absorb what the NA and NB never could. The NC is larger and heavier than its predecessors — facts that drew criticism when it launched — but that extra real estate under the hood meant Rocketeer’s engineers could seat the AJ30 V6 without touching the bulkhead. The subframe and original structure remain exactly as Mazda manufactured them.
That’s not a minor footnote. On earlier generations, fitting a V6 with comparable output would have demanded significant structural surgery, and the weight penalty of the engine against the NA’s featherweight platform would have worked against the car’s dynamics. The NC absorbs the V6’s mass differently. Rocketeer claims the conversion preserves both the overall weight and the weight distribution of the stock car — a claim that took 18 months of development to make credible.
What 18 Months of Engineering Actually Looks Like
The AJ30 isn’t a crate engine dropped in with adapter plates. Rocketeer re-engineered it from the cylinder head up. The bespoke head design is what allows the V6 to sit within the NC’s engine bay without bulkhead modification — a packaging solution that required custom work rather than off-the-shelf parts. Alongside that, the conversion includes a carbon-fiber intake plenum, a revised throttle body, a new exhaust system, and a matched clutch and flywheel.
The result is an engine that’s high-revving by V6 standards and tuned for response rather than peak torque. Rocketeer’s existing NA and NB customers can already spec a 375 hp, 9,000-rpm version of the same V6 family — which hints at where the NC program could go next. For now, the 300 hp tune is the launch spec, and the company’s stated priority is feel over figures.
Managing Director Bruce Southey put it plainly: “Weight distribution, overall weight, and a visceral, engaging, analogue driving experience were key, which has meant 18 months of time and effort has gone into engineering the new car. But the end result shows our no-compromise approach really works.”
The Momentum Car Argument, And Why Rocketeer Isn’t Contradicting It
Mazda won’t turbocharge the MX-5. That’s not an oversight or a cost decision — it’s a philosophy. The MX-5 is the definitive momentum car, a machine that rewards drivers who understand its dynamics rather than one that papers over technique with horsepower. Mazda has held that line through four generations, and it’s hard to argue with the result: the MX-5 remains the best-selling two-seat roadster in history.
Rocketeer isn’t arguing against that ethos. The company’s pitch is that the NC platform is a brilliant engineering canvas for buyers who want something beyond the stock experience — and that doing it properly, preserving the handling balance and analog character, is the only way worth doing it. This isn’t a track-rat NC with a mismatched drivetrain. From the outside, the conversion is nearly invisible: gold wheels and slightly larger exhaust tips are the only tells on the facelift RF model shown at launch.
Pricing and What You’re Actually Buying
The Rocketeer NC is available as a turnkey solution priced at £25,000 plus VAT — roughly £30,000 all-in for UK buyers, or approximately $33,000 plus taxes for American customers — on top of a donor NC MX-5. That’s a significant outlay for a third-generation Miata, but context matters: a new 2.0-liter MX-5 was already a £35,000-plus proposition before the current generation’s pricing moved further north.
Rocketeer also sells conversion kits separately for builders who want to do the work themselves. The company has delivered 30 completed cars and distributed 180 kits worldwide across its NA and NB programs — numbers that suggest a genuine customer base rather than a boutique curiosity. The NC program opens that pipeline to a generation that’s more affordable to source as a donor, more widely available, and — as Rocketeer has now demonstrated — more capable as a platform than its reputation ever suggested.
Gearheads who’ve written off the NC as the generation that lost the plot might want to reconsider. Rocketeer just showed what it was always capable of.
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