I had one for an MR2. It was a pain in the arse as we didn’t have a garage at the time so it spent the summer months on the floor of a bedroom.
Yeah. The Mk1 and Mk2 MX5 had reasonable demand for hardtops, mostly from people worried about soft tops in winter. When the Mk3 MX5 came out, Mazda did offer a hard top, but you see hardly any around. They they had the folding hardtop. When the Mk4 came out, it was a return to a cloth top. While there were concept hardtops, they never made it to production.
And the sister Fiat 124 Spider
Cant deny about rust and corrosion on MG cars. Maybe someone will highlight that regarding the Cyberster for UK spec vehicles. We use salt on our roads. I dont envisaged this car being driven in winter on salty roads though. Seems like a second car not a daily. Also jet washing underneath and having it undersealed maybe should be on the list of modifications for buyers?
In the Nissan Z community this is a thing with the cars. A lot of cars were sealed by owners.
Most MX5s are second cars and not used in winter. Nevertheless, many are as rotten as a peach.
Rust-proofing an electric car is not straightforward, plus, looking at rust appearing on 2 year old MG4s, not sure it will do all that much.
One thing that affects all cloth top convertibles; water drains through the body, through a range of drain tubes. These tubes will pass through fairly complex sill structures (necessary because there is no roof). Blocked drains give rise to flooding in the sills, or a lot of condensation. There are a ton of rust traps.
The combination of aluminium and steel will be interesting. My other car is a X350 Jag, which has a aluminium body bolted to steel bits. The steel bits rust more quickly due to galvanic corrosion.