Mazda

There's a background that brought you to that stage. Well, Mazda has a history also. An intriguing history so far so car companies go, especially considering Mazda started as a cork maker back in the "early days."

This will be the first story covering Mazda's history. In this specific article we'll bring you up to date with how Mazda started, and quit right when Mazda started bringing vehicles to the UNITED states.

Produced as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. in 1920, Mazda started out as a machinetool manufacturing plant but immediately turned to making vehicles. This is the only car which was in creation when Mazda factories began making rifles until the 2nd World War broke out.

Come 1929, the business made their first car, and machine tools. A test run of 30 tri cycle trucks were made. By 1931 these same tri cycle trucks were being exported to China.

1934:: Toyo Kogyo switched its name to Mazda, although it was unofficial. However, based on Ford's Brand site on the issue of Mazda's history, it states that Mr. Matsuda switched the title in 1931, and he especially wanted the business to connect its picture together with the god Ahura Mazda. Additionally, it claims that Mr. Matsuda had difficulty choosing between naming the business after his family name or the god. But he eventually picked the god's name because as the website says, "This was characteristic of the organization's creator, who was lowly and idealistic and wished the business name to be emblematic of the broader positive meaning."

The name "Mazda" appeared on each of the vehicles created by the business.

1934 :: Mazda took on the first trade marked symbol and also started making little eight wheeled trucks.

1935 :: Mazda began making gauge blocks and rock drills, hence expanding their production capacity.

1936 :: Mazda took on the brand new trademarked image. A "Flying-M". Not the layout you see now, but something a bit different. It was made to reveal Mazda's connection to the home city, Hiroshima. It also was designed to show Mazda's "characteristics", something we've begun to understand now. Interestingly, these characteristics are most typically linked with the Zoroastrian god with the same name.

As Mazda was beginning development of a modest sedan, 1940 approached. However, due to World War II, development ceased to help Japan's war effort. Alas, less-than half of the factory was ruined due the atom bomb which was dropped on August 6, 1945. After rebuilding, production and auto development began a new.

1959 :: Mazda came out with a brand new symbol that was placed on all their production cars.

1960 :: Mazda introduced the coupe, which was among the first real two door passenger cars Mazda ever made. As a matter of fact, the sixties brought about lots of adjustments for Mazda.

The Carol-600, one of the first fourdoor sedans was constructed in 1962. In 1963 Mazda found cumulative production reach one million units. The first generation Familia 100 and 800 was manufactured in 1964. A name that's been used on current production versions in Japan, a vehicle called the Protegj here in North America.

1966 :: Mazda also reached a technical cooperation arrangement with Kia Motors Corp.

After 1970 Mazda began eyeing the largest market for the vehicles, the US. It opened up a North American division under the name Mazda North American Operations and it proved to hold the winning recipe. Actually, Mazda models were so successful the business even created a pickup truck according to the rotary engine.

With the oil crisis and 1973, the parched rotary engines that Mazda used caused a fall in sales but the Japanese company had not actually given up on piston engines so it managed to utilize a 4 cylinder version on its cars. The smaller Familia chain and Capella were born.

But Mazda wasn't going to give on its sporty cars and it determined to produce a parallel plant that will make cars outside the mainstream. In 1978, they came up with the after and very sporty RX7 with the RX8.