Five things you mightn't know about Mazda

Friday, 24 November 2017

Watch: one lap of Mazda's museum in Hiroshima.

Mazda has had more than its share of tough times, but above all it's known as one of Japan's most individualistic carmakers. How did it get there? Here are five fact-based stories that tell us a lot about the brand.

IT'S A CORKING COMPANY

Many carmakers have started out making things other than cars. The origins of Mazda lie in the Toyo Cork Kogyo company and a Hiroshima inventor/businessman called Jujiro Matsuda (born 1875, known as 'the founder' at modern-day Mazda) in 1920.

Jujiro Matsuda was Mr Mazda: founded company way back in 1920.

Cork wasn't really a sustainable thing at that time: demand had slumped following the First World War. Matsuda-san had more global ambitions, especially tool-making. When the cork factory burned down in 1925, he quickly repurposed the company and looked for other manufacturing opportunities. The company was renamed Toyo Kogyo in 1927.

THREE-WHEELERS

First Mazda vehicle was this Type-DA from 1931. Mitsubishi distributed it, hence the Three-Diamond branding.

The birth of the Mazda name came in 1931 with Toyo's first motorised vehicle, a three-wheeled truck called the Mazda-Go Type-DA. The 'Mazda' brand referenced Matsuda-san but also Ahura Mazda, the God of Light.

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Three-wheelers became Mazda's thing. The most innovative was the 1938 Type-GA 'green panel', which had a hi-tech four-speed transmission claimed to improve fuel economy by 20 per cent over previous trucks. Green was seen as a symbol of youth and peace. Think of the Type-GA as the first SkyActiv Mazda.

When war broke out, the factory shifted to compulsory military manufacturing. Hiroshima was a safe and isolated port and Japan's top technology was gathered there during the Second World War - one of the main reasons it was chosen as a target for the world's first atomic bomb.

The A-bomb was dropped on Matsuda-san's 70th birthday: August 6, 1945. He was a safe distance away, but one of his sons and many Toyo Kogyo employees were killed. Company headquarters were 5km away from ground-zero; it was used for government offices and broadcasting following the attack.

By the end of 1945, Toyo Kogyo had restarted manufacture of its three-wheeled trucks.

NOT A JOINER

As a carmaker, Mazda is known for innovative and sometimes unconventional engineering. The roots of this probably lie in the business challenges facing postwar Japan.

The government established a Basic Administrative Policy for Automotive Industry in 1961 and then the Extraordinary Act to Promote Specific Industries in 1963. Under the latter, there was a plan to protect and grow the domestic car industry by consolidating individual makers into three different groups; Mazda was joined with Toyota and Nissan, all makers focused on passenger cars.

Toyo Kogo/Mazda was the smallest of the group and feared it would be swallowed by the others, so determined to develop proprietary technology to keep its independence. Then came the rotary engine.

ROTARY FIRSTS

Toyo Kogyo was the only company that was able to develop the Wankel-concept rotary engine to mainstream production - at least with any real success. NSU and Citroen also had a go, but it helped drive the the former into Audi ownership and the latter into bankruptcy.

For the record, the so-called 'Wankel Club' lasted three phases over two decades and included automotive makers such as Daimler-Benz, MAN, Alfa Romeo, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Nissan, General Motors, Toyota and Ford of Germany, as well as 16 other industrial companies (including motorcycle and marine).

Mazda claims it succeeded by getting back to basics and making its own tooling for the rotary engine. Nobody's claiming the technology was a stellar example of reliability and/or fuel-efficiency, but it's still a big part of Mazda mythology to this day.

The Cosmo Sport of 1967 was the first rotary sports car, although the RX-7 is the most famous.

The made-for-America REPU of 1974 was the world's first (and still only) series-production rotary-engined pickup truck. The Roadpacer AP (for Anti Pollution!) of 1975 was the first-and-only production-rotary Holden. Well, sort of: Mazda took the Aussie Kingswood and turned it into a high-end executive car for the Japanese domestic market. REPU and Roadpacer were similarly successful… which is to say not at all.

Rotary technology had a terrible name following the mid-1970s oil crisis (note the timing of the REPU/Roadpacer), so Mazda spent years developing a Le Mans-winning racing car to show the world what it could do. The 787B of 1991 was the first Japanese car and first rotary (of course) to win the 24-hour endurance race.

ALL IN ONE

Mazda (although the company wasn't officially called that until 1984) was founded in Hiroshima and has never left. It's one of the very few carmakers in the world to have its headquarters, design centre, manufacturing and even shipping (it has a private port) in one location.