Mazda Motor Corporation

Mazda Motor Corporation has been an amazing success story. Manufacturing about 800,000 vehicles each year they have sales equally divided between North America, Europe and Asia, brining them diversity in the world market to go along with a reputation for quality.

Based in Hiroshima, Japan, Mazda began life as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., LTD in 1920. Machine tools were first manufactured by the company; however they transitioned from making tools to cars in 1931 when they introduced their first vehicle, the Mazda-Go. Oddly enough while every car they made was called a Mazda, the company did not take the Mazda name officially until the 1980's. While their small vehicles were popular they did not enter the four wheel vehicle market until 1960; when the Mazda R360 was introduced to the world.

In the 1970's and 1980's Mazda became a major players in automobiles due to quality manufacturing and use of the Wankel rotary engine. Their first Wankel engined sports model car was the Mazda Cosmo. It was at this same time that Ford, the big-name American auto manufacturing firm, gained a 25% ownership in the once all Japanese owned Mazda Motor Company. Later, Ford increased that ownership to more than 33%.

Mazda's sales declined in the 1990's after a disastrous attempt at diversification of brand names. Market research showed that the Mazda brand was tied to economy and budget cars in Japan, America and Europe. Mazda tried to increase sales by introducing new brands, the Euros, Anfini and Autozam. It was rumored that a V12 engine would power these cars, but plans were halted. Competitors Nissan and Toyota had multiple brands in Japan. At the same time corporate identify suffered over a new logo that was dropped quickly for another new logo, which too closely resembled Renault. That problem has since been solved with a new, easily identifiable corporate logo.

Mazda is today the only manufacturer of the Wankel rotary engine automobiles, and the only manufacturer that produces two and three rotary Wankel engines for production. Another distinction of Mazda is that they are the only manufacturer to ever product the Miller cycle engine, which was used in the Mazda Millenis in 1993. Mazda is also the only Asian auto manufacturer to have won the 24 Hours of LeMans Race, with a rotary engined vehicle in 1991.

Where the name Mazda came from is open to debate. In the Zoroastrian religion there is a deity called Ahura Mazda, and many say the cars are named after the Zoroastrian god. Others say it was simply an Anglican mistranslation of the founder's name, Jujiro Matsuda. Another possible reason is that the name Mazda was similar to the name of the founder, who had a strong interest in religion and spirituality and chose the name to honor the Zoroastrians. The company is referred to in Japan by both the name Mazda and by the name Matsuda after the founder.

Mazda is traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is considered a strong company financially today. One third of the interest in Mazda has continued to be owned by the Ford Motor Company and the two companies have had many joint ventures together and often co-brand various models of their cars. The official song of Mazda is the popular Zoom Zoom Zoom.

The future of Mazda is bright. They will continue into the 21st century making quality cars bought, driven and enjoyed by people the world over, and will be able to use their relationship with Ford and their knowledge developed over the years to expand their market share.

About The Author:
Jason Petrina is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com