Many, many moons ago (1968), I worked for a company in Leamington Spa called Soans, a Ford dealership.
A chap with a workshop in Warwick used to bring his aluminium bodied twin Hillman Imp engined Le Mans prototype "the Desauto" in for steering and suspension geometry checks.
His name was Tony Stevens, he was a brilliant automotive designer his projects are long to list here, he designed many sports cars and also produced with a bodyshop in Warwick, Ladbroke-Avon (which I also worked for), designed and produced a soft-top conversion for the Jaguar XJ6C.
In 1979 he decided to produce his own sports car using the Reliant Kitten chassis, it filled the gap left in the market with the demise of the larger sports car manufactures MG and Triumph, only the Lotus Elan still being produced in any numbers.
In 1980 it was shown at the Birmingham Motor show, and it was only a relatively short period of time afterwards that our MX5's arrived on the scene.
Extract from Professor Tony Stevens Cipher history page.
Prior to the launch of the Miata (MX5) at the Chicago Motor Show in 1989, prototypes had been produced by the International Automotive Design company in Worthing
So do you think it may have been possible that the UK may have had just a tiny amount of input into the conception of our delightful little sports car?
Mozza.