Their elemental nature is kept from you by layers of civility slathered on like cake icing. Heavy insulation and isolating motor mounts distance you from the engine's acoustical personality.
Automatic transmissions make gear-shifting a remote and almost abstract concept.
Power-steering units often deprive the driver of an intimate knowledge of what the front wheels are up to in a turn. Miata, on the other hand, is happy to share its essence with its driver. This is not to suggest that this is some noisy primitive from the dawn of automobiling. Far from it. But it does let enough of its basic mechanical nature bleed through so that you are given an elevated feel for what it is doing, and a greater sense of oneness with it.