The Mazda Motor Corporation is a Japanese Auto company in Hiroshima. Before the Mazda Company
acquired its name it was called as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Company which manufactured parts for Motor vehicles and also machine tools. They also produced weapons during the Second World War. That is the brief history about how the company acquired its name. Soon Mazda started making its own vehicles and the first car it manufactured was R360 which was publicized as the Mazda R360 and was launched in 1960. Soon the next vehicle to be launched was the Mazda Carol. These cars when launched did fairly well.
Through the years there were many Mazda models released some of them which received a good response from the car market while the others did not make the cut. Soon Mazda fell into a financial crisis after which it was taken over by Ford Motor Company. After Ford took over the company many of Fords models were based on the Mazda Configurationering concepts. Mazda helped Ford build many vehicles including the Explorer which was based on the Mazda Navajo. The Mazda Navajo was very unsuccessful and was major contributor to Mazda’s downfall. Because the Mazda Company invested a lot in the car and hoped it would sell the best but unfortunately it did not happen. But on the contrary the Ford explorer which was based on exactly the same mechanisms was a big hit as an SUV.
The Mazda Navajo was a 2 door coupe. Probably the body was what went wrong with the Navajo. After the Explorer plenty of Fords vehicles were prototypes of previous Mazda models. Ford started selling the badge Mazda’s in Asian Countries and even Australia like the Laser and the Telstar. Thus Ford created a market opportunity fir Mazda in these geographical areas and to their surprise the Mazda vehicles did much better here than in the United States.
Above - The 2009 model for of the Maserati Grand Turismo