Restomod of the Week: the V6-powered, 270bhp Rocketeer MXV6

It’s a Mazda MX-5 that’s had a heart transplant. Out goes the old four-cylinder engine, in comes a pulse-raising V6 with more power, a sweeter sound and an increased ability to ruin your haircut.

The conversion can be applied to any Mk1 or Mk2 MX-5, and work has begun on extending that offer to the Mk3. Each car can be fine tuned to suit every individual customer, so if you want yours to demolish track days like a Caterham Seven or cross continents like a grand tourer, the company behind the package will make it so.

Rocketeer, a company based in Hungerford in the middle of the sleepy North Wessex Downs. It was founded by Bruce Southey and Tom Bullick, and proudly describes itself as “fundamentally about a reaction to the mainstream”. So no autonomous, hybrid, safety-obsessed gubbins here, Rocketeer is about what’s good for your soul.

Why the MX-5? “Great question, really simple answer,” says Bruce. “Because it’s a fantastic platform. I didn’t choose the MX-5 because it was cute or had pop-up headlights, it’s because if you write down all the attributes that you want to achieve in a sports car - suspension, handling, steering, power-to-weight, balance - actually the MX-5 is within 5 per cent of any of those criteria anyway. What it lacks is a bit of soul and power, and that’s what the V6 gives it.”

Let’s focus on the engine first. Rocketeer believed the MX-5 could handle more than its original four-cylinder power plant, but that a V8 would be too big and heavy. An inline six-cylinder engine would be too long, which left a V6 as the logical choice.

Enter the Ford Duratec V6, selected because it’s reliable, cheap and there are lots of them. Originally designed by Porsche, the 3.0-litre engine was later developed by Ford with input from Cosworth, powering everything from the Mondeo ST220 to the Noble M12, the latter with the help of a couple of turbos. Wherever possible Rocketeer sources units from the Jaguar S-Type, as these had a marginally better spec. Naturally aspirated and oversquare (with an 89mm bore and 79.5mm stroke) the engine is high-revving and - crucially - no heavier than the iron block it replaces thanks to an all-aluminium construction.

Beyond that, there’s not a lot else to it. The brakes and suspension have been upgraded to cope with the extra power, but the original gearbox and rear diff are deemed more than adequate.

The interior can be finished entirely to each buyer’s request, including modern tech like an Apple CarPlay-supporting infotainment system, should you wish. “If you want rhinoceros hide on the seats, then we can do that,” Bruce assures us.

The entire makeover can take up to a year, but you’re welcome to visit any time to see how your car is progressing.

There’s no limit, so order a dozen if you like. As long as there’s a demand for MX-5s with more power and enough donor cars and engines to meet that demand, Rocketeer will keep taking orders.

Don’t forget that the Mazda MX-5 is the top-selling two-seater sports car of all time, so there are literally hundreds of thousands of old models that have the potential to be given a new lease of life. Rocketeer has sold about 100 kits so far, and there are about 10 full restomods on UK roads to date. So they’ll be in business for a good while yet.

Yes. Well, faster than the original at least. The Jaguar engine produces around 240bhp, but before it’s installed in the MX-5 it’s completely stripped and rebuilt. New gasket seals, bearings, oil pump, piston rings, ECU and much else bring power and torque up to 270bhp and 240lb ft at 3,500rpm, and it’ll keep going to 7,250rpm. That’s plenty for a car that weighs 1,100kg.

TG was lucky enough to have a go in the one pictured above in 2020, and 0-60mph took in the region of six seconds. There’s no precise figure here as every engine is different, so each Rocketeer customer will end up with something completely unique. Also, we forgot to take a stopwatch.

Good question. If you don’t already have a Mk1 or Mk2 MX-5, you’re looking at around £3,000 to pick one up. Then the cost of the engine work and everything else on top of that exceeds £10,000, so in total you could be looking at a bill of £15,000 or so.

There are two ways of looking at this. One is to consider that a brand new Mazda MX-5 today will set you back £24,000 in its most basic trim, so Rocketeer’s V6 version is something of a performance bargain.

The other way recognises that this is a lot of money to sink into an old car, especially in the knowledge that it’s value is likely to slide, then slide some more, then just keep sliding. So if you’re going to do this, it’s probably because you want to keep your MX-5 forever.

Rocketeer does offer a kit-car version for £6,000, but you’ll need to source your own V6. And be very handy with a spanner.

The keen-eyed among you will have quickly figured out that you could get a Porsche Boxster for MXV6 money, but the German sports car is “still too big” according to Bruce. “You can’t blast down a B-road without wincing in a Boxster,” he explains. “You still have to stop to let other stuff come the other way.

“And we do have lots of customers who are getting out of their Porsche 911s and Porsche Boxsters, and getting into one of these. And loving it. Absolutely loving it.”

It addresses one of the major criticisms that the MX-5 has endured throughout its life, namely that it could do with more power and that the source of that power could be a bit more… sonorous.

And while the MX-5 is no stranger to being fettled by shed-dwelling owners, Rocketeer has struck upon a fantastic recipe that’s executed with a serious amount of skill.

Rumour has it that Mazda built its own V6 prototype of the MX-5, but decided that it would encroach on the territory of its faster sports cars. Perhaps there’s a parallel universe somewhere in which they decided to go for it. In which case Rocketeer’s creation is a snapshot of an alternative history that never came to pass.

Rocketeer is drawing up plans to take the full restomod path in the future. “Completely take it apart and improve the whole thing,” says Bruce. “Restore it properly, back to the bare shell. Re-trim the interior, lots of little bespoke bits and pieces so you can have a V6 sports car that is absolutely to your specification. Think Singer, Alfaholics, that sort of thing.” Watch this space.