Once issued a challenge to write a novel in just six words, Ernest Hemingway famously produced, “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Well that’s a bit depressing. No wonder he shot himself. It’s rumoured that Hemingway considered this snippet his best work. Get ready to eat your heart out Papa Bear, ’cause I can sum up the Mazda2 in one syllable: “Wheeee!”
Eh? Hmm, seems that’s not good enough for our Editor. But wait, there’s more!
At the end of yesterday’s race session, it appeared that we had a Stealth-626-Supra battle for the B.F.E. GP win on laps. All day today, however, the Ghetto Motorsports Mazda RX-7 (winner of the 2010 B.F.E. GP, not to mention the LeMons Mountain Region championship) kept creeping up on the 1-2-3 cars. (Read More…)
The Mazda GLC, aka Familia aka 323 was once a fairly common sight on American roads, but just about all of the GLCs were hatchbacks. Here’s a rare sedan that was able to hang on for 30 years before being discarded. (Read More…)
Ben writes:
I’m planning a purchase this summer. The two cars I’m looking at most closely are the Mazda2 and the Scion xD. I noticed that the 2011 Mazda2s are spending an average of 109 days on the lot, and the 2010 xD is even worse at 239 days. Your February sales charts and March charts paint a similar picture. They’re both selling terribly, but I’m so far unable to find good deals on either, for different reasons.
Having seen its RX-8 banned from Europe for flunking emissions tests, Mazda may be going to extreme lengths to improve the efficiency of its next-gen rotary engine (codenamed 16x) which has been in development since 2007. Autocar reports
The 16X’s capacity has been raised from 1304cc to 1600cc, and it is also physically smaller and partly built from aluminium. The changes are designed to improve two of the biggest issues with rotary engine performance: fuel economy and torque delivery.
The Mazda source said the new engine “needed a smaller hole on the wall [of the combustion chamber]” as a result of eliminating the space-hungry normal spark plug. He also admitted to Autocar that the use of laser ignition “was absolutely possible”.
Recent advances in Japan have created high-power lasers made from ceramics that measure just 9mm in diameter and 11mm in length, easily small enough to fit into a car engine.
Not only would laser ignition allow the 16x to burn leaner, it would also allow more precise control of ignition points and timing. More importantly, it would cement the Wankel rotary’s status as the least-necessary, most overly-complex and thoroughly awesome engine ever created. And they say emissions standards always make cars less interesting…
Mazda has confirmed [to Reuters via Automotive News [sub]] what has been rumored for a while (especially in the Mexican media): open a new plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, near VW and GM’s Silao facilities. Production starts this fall and the line starts rolling in 2013, according to “people familiar with the matter.” In the meantime, Mazda6 production at the Flat Rock, MI joint venture plant continues until mid-2012, at which point Mazda will make a decision that it’s still “studying,” but it won’t be building the Mazda6. Interestingly, Mazda’s new Mexican plant is only being built for “at least” 50k units of
compact cars, initially for sale in Mexico and South America, and eventually export to North America.
Could the next-generation of Mazda midsizers be hecho en Mexico as well? It’s possible, but we won’t know until Mazda announces more details about the new factory. Meanwhile, nobody’s expecting Mazda to hang around Flat Rock… least of all Ford.
Mazda will stop making cars in the U.S. at around 2013, The Nikkei [sub] heard from unnamed sources inside of the Japanese company. It’s not that Mazda is leaving America. It’s more a continuing process of its divorce from Ford. Mazda wants to sell its share in AutoAlliance International Inc., a 50-50 U.S. joint venture with Ford, back to Ford. (Read More…)
In the United States, unlike elsewhere in the world, there aren’t many choices for those who need seating for more than five people but who don’t want to give up the maneuverability of a compact car. Kia gave the segment a go, but withdrew the Rondo from the U.S. market a couple of years ago. Chevrolet has opted to not even test the waters with the Orlando. So Mazda currently has the segment to itself. But the Ford C-Max arrives in less than a year. Does the revised 2012 Mazda5 have what it takes to fend off the challenger?
The temperature soared well into the 90s today, causing fearful mechanical carnage among the cars that had survived the first session of the 2011 ‘Shine Country Classic in South Carolina. Through all the busted engine blocks and vaporized head gaskets, one Screamin’ Chicken-bedecked Mazda just kept blasting out fast lap after fast lap, padding its lead and avoiding even a hint of a black flag. In the end, the Hong Norrth 1994 Mazda MX-3 took the checkered flag with a dominating 12-lap cushion separating it from the second-place car (the Team SOB VW Golf, a perennial South Region contender that’s way overdue for a LeMons win on laps). (Read More…)
It was a hot, muggy, rod-throwin’ day here at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina; when the checkered flag waved to end the session, only 36 of 68 starters were still moving under their own power. (Read More…)
For most of the ’11 Goin’ For Broken race, the battle for the overall win seemed to be all about the Spin-N-Out Burger E30 and the Model T GT… but a lot can happen over the course of 24 nonstop hours of road racing. We had snow, gusty winds, dust storms, wild horses, and— eventually— a whirlwind of mechanical problems and black flags that knocked out the top two contenders. You don’t dare make any mistakes when you’ve got the winningest car in LeMons history looming in your rear-view, and Eyesore Racing’s ghettocharged Miata made its move at oh-dark-thirty this morning. (Read More…)
Mazda may be free from its less-than-entirely-successful relationship with Ford, but when it comes to US production, Mazda is still very much stuck in its Ford-dependent past. B-Series pickup production has ended in St Paul, but Tribute is still built alongside Escape in Kansas City (for the moment), and the majority of Mazda’s US production is still accounted for by Mazda6, which is also built alongside Fords at the shared Flat Rock “Auto Alliance” plant. But AutoWeek‘s Hans Greiml reports that the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper believes Mazda could be looking to pull out from Flat Rock.
the Mazda6 is a big reason Mazda can’t turn a regional operating profit in North America–one of its most important markets.
The company planned to produce 100,000 Mazda6 units annually at the Flat Rock, Mich., plant, when the redesigned sedan was launched there in mid-2008. Then the financial crisis hit.
Last year the plant built only 45,168 units.
Mazda is cagey about what options it is mulling. If it quits producing the Mazda6, it could bring in another vehicle–or Mazda could quit the plant completely. Speculation abounds in Japan that Mazda is eyeing a new, lower cost North American production base in Mexico.
Mazda’s CX-7 and CX-9 are masterpieces of scaled design, distinguishable largely by proportion or badging rather than any real differences in design cues. And, by the looks of this camo’d test mule, Mazda’s forthcoming CX-5 will be yet another CX… just, you know, smaller. But don’t be fooled: the production CX-5 should be one of the first applications of Mazda’s Kodo design language first shown on the Shinari concept. In fact, the Minagi concept has already previewed the CX-5’s use of the new “Japanese Alfa Romeo” aesthetic, but as this hypnotic video proves, the language can go a lot of different directions. At least it will definitely be different… and not in the Cheshire Cat-meets-Pokemon way, either.
The Index of Effluency, 24 Hours of LeMons racing’s top prize, goes to the team that achieves beyond all expectations in an unspeakably terrible car. That means, most of the time, something like an MGB-GT or Chevy S10. A 1987 Mazda RX-7, a pretty quick and reliable car in most cases, wouldn’t qualify for IOE status… under normal circumstances. In the case of the lunatic Texans of Team Sensory Assault, however, we’ve got a silk purse that’s been turned into a sow’s ear, then shot full of holes, fed through a shredder, and boiled in chlorine triflouride. (Read More…)
The North Dallas Hooptie 24 Hours of LeMons is over, tornadoes, lightning, and all, and a most improbable team has taken the win on laps. (Read More…)
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