A CENTURY OF DEFYING CONVENTION: MAZDA 1920-2020

Mazda’s love of the epic drive

With a century of history that has seen Mazda turn itself from a manufacturer of cork products to a successful independent global automotive company, Mazda’s story has had engineering innovation at its heart from the very beginnings of the company.

Mazda has never been afraid to highlight the capabilities of that engineering by demonstrating its products in the public eye, putting them to the test on challenging, pioneering and ambitious drives to prove just how good they are.

This never stop challenging approach, started from Mazda’s very first vehicle: a three-wheeled open truck called the Mazda Go

Introduced in October 1931, the Mazda-Go was equipped with an in-house developed air-cooled one- cylinder 482cc engine. A sales success, this first version was followed by more powerful variants.

It was the Mazda-Go that set the early example of Mazda’s willingness to take on an ambitious drive, when in 1936 Mazda set out on a cross-country promotional tour with five Mazda-Go models. Starting in Kagoshima near the southernmost tip of Japan’s main island chain, the expedition showcased the three-wheeler’s durability on 1,680miles of dust, mud and backbone-rattling trails, arriving in Tokyo 25 days later.

Thirty years later Mazda chose arguably one of the most fearsome and toughest motorsport events to promote its new ground-breaking sports car. Launched in 1967, the Mazda Cosmo 110S was the world’s first production car with a twin-rotor rotary engine, named after the late sixties’ fascination with the space race, this sleek sports coupé would spearhead an endurance driving endeavour to promote Mazda cars in the crucial European export market.

An event created to replace the legendary Leige-Rome-Leige Alpine rally race when racing on public roads in Europe become more difficult, the Marathon De Le Route was no less of a challenge for man or machine. And it was this race that Mazda decided to enter as its first foray into international competition.

To test the endurance and reliability of the rotary engine, Mazda entered two Cosmo’s in the grueling 1968 Marathon de la Route – a mind-boggling 84- hour race around the fearsome 28km Nurburgring. While one car crashed out of the race, the surviving Cosmo finished fourth, beaten only by a pair of Porsche 911s and a Lancia Fulvia – considered at the time to be two of the finest sports cars in Europe.

Mazda, the rotary engine and the stunning Cosmo had made their mark, and today this epic motorsport endeavor stands as the first chapter in a motorsport history that saw Mazda take the rotary engine all the way to Le Mans victory in 1991.

However, as Mazda grew its global presence and fame through the sixties and seventies it wasn’t just on the racetrack that Mazda put its newest products through the toughest of public tests. In 1977 to promote the first-generation Mazda 323, a pair of 323 hatchbacks made the 9,320-mile journey from Hiroshima to their European premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Incredibly at the height of the Cold War, the two 323s drove through the Soviet Union, and in spite of the poor roads and tough conditions of the drive they suffered practically no breakdowns - a real achievement that confirmed the all-new hatchback’s reliability even before it went on sale.

The 1977 expedition was echoed in 1990, six Mazda vehicles (626s, 323s and E2200 vans) drove from Hiroshima to Mazda’s German headquarters in Leverkusen, this time through the dissolving Soviet Union. While in 2013, this time with journalists driving the cars, several third-generation Mazda3s repeated the 1977 Japan to Germany, factory to Frankfurt Motor Show excursion, driving through Russia, Belarus and Poland.

In 2009, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MX-5, Mazda NZ teamed up with the MX-5 Club for an epic drive all across New Zealand.

Mazda New Zealand Managing Director David Hodge said: “The company’s willingness to publicly put their vehicles through very testing conditions has played a key role in establishing the brands credibility and reputation as a manufacturer of outstanding vehicles designed to suit a range of different environments.”

Inspired by the challenging excursions, drives and public vehicle tests of the brand’s past, today Mazda Epic Drive media events, allow journalists to experience challenging roads, amazing scenery and unique adventure from behind the wheel of a Mazda.

ENDS