Mazda is one of those brands that every enthusiast would like to see doing better. The Mazda6 is among the tightest, most focused mainstream sedans offered in the United States, and the rotary-engined RX-8 sports car is a fitting halo product for the only manufacturer to persist with Felix Wankel's motor. Both, however, have been niche players.

As of July 2008, Mazda has 675 dealerships across the United States.


The mid-90s sees Mazda enter a rather mad period. The success of the MX-5/ Miata going to its head, the automaker launches a series of interesting - but salesproof - cars, including the sporting 323F (replete with 2.0-liter V6) and the Jaguar-esque Xedos sedan. In the pipeline is a V12 sedan to be sold under a new, Toyota/ Lexus-rivaling Amati brand in the United States, but it never sees the light of day.


"Zoom-Zoom," entices the cover page of the '02 Mazda6's Owner's Manual.

"All children instinctively know it.

"A few adults still remember it.

"One unique car company refuses to outgrow it.

"In grown-up language, it measn the exhilaration and liberation that come from experiencing sheer motion.

"But, as usual, children put it much better and simply call it, Go Zoom-Zoom.

"We practice it every day.

"It's why we build the kind of cars we do.

"Zoom-Zoom.

"Can we re-awaken it in you today?"

Before the Zoom-Zoom campaign, and the subsequent products that were launched under its umbrella, Mazda's distinctiveness was based largely on memories of its rotary engine. Motor Trend might have given the 626 sedan its Import Car of the Year award in 1992, but there was little truly unique about the Mazda mainstreamer. The Miata aside, one would have to look back to the MX-3 to find the last unique Mazda, by design. Mazda's MPV had an intriguing rotary shape in its dashboard form, but that was as heritage laden as Mazda got. The company looked for all the world to be chasing humdrum Toyota.

Realizing the folly of this, the Mazda6 revives Mazda's mainstream efforts. Mazda seeks both to revive its distinctive tradition, and to leave the staid 626 behind. "We are about to take a great step toward reigniting the Mazda spark," enthuses Mazda Motor Corporation president Mark Fields as the car launches at the 2002 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Mazda design, revitalized under Fields, seeks to "strike an emotional balance between form and engineering." The Mazda6 returns proper, round gauges to a Mazda (again, Miata apart); round air vents, and a handbrake placed close to the driver's seat. Stalks flank the wheel at the same angles as the Mazda insignia.


As Mitsubishi did with its 2006 Eclipse's design and J-Cool advertising, Mazda is rediscovering its Japanese roots. The Miata is said to be designed with jinbai ittal philosophy (rider and horse as one), and the Mazda5 features a seating system dubbed Karakuri: Japanese for a mechanical device to take someone by surprise.


Mazda is the sole automaker to continue mass production of the Wankel rotary engine, the device whose foibles did for NSU. The problem, as BBC Top Gear presenter and The Sunday Times columnist Jeremy Clarkson explains, "is that the tips of the triangular 'piston' spinning round in the cylinder 9,000 times a minute have to be as tough as diamonds, but obviously not as expensive" ('Mazda RX-8', Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times, September 14^th, 2003).


In 2000, a foundering Mazda sets itself the goal of doubling its 1.5% U.S. market share by the end of the decade.


Mazda opens its Flat Rock, Michigan plant in 1987. Plant capacity is set at 240,000 annually.

Mazda sales in 1988 stand at 349,337, a decline over 379,843 sold in 1986. In the years to follow, sales continue to stagnate. Ford takes 50% ownership of the Flat Rock plant in 1992.


The Toyo Kogyo Company, founded in Hiroshima on January 30^th, 1920, begins manufacturing Mazda automobiles in 1960.