Mazda Teases New 3 And Swoopy 4 Door Sports Car Before Tokyo Debut

Mazda is in crisis at the moment and they are probably going to use these concepts to pretend that all is well. It's never been the most robust of companies. Ford saved it and propped it up. Mazda simply does not have the products needed to be a viable, stand-alone manufacturer for much longer. Their reliance on crossovers shows that they know they need mainstream products. The 6 is a total sales failure and the 3 is hanging on for dear life in its segment.

The reality is that Toyota will gobble up Mazda.

Ford actually destroyed Mazda. They put their awful transmission in the them that tarnished the Japanese reliability.

BS! When Ford bought in to Mazda, Mazda was heading for bankruptcy because of the rotary engine fiasco.

Anything with 4 doors is not a sports car.

Actually - the automatic trans before the Ford CD4E was not that much better than the FORD trans they put into the Mazda - they both suffered from a lot of problems. Mazda had been using Jatco transmissions - as did Nissan and Hyundai also produced Jatco designs as well for themselves. Most of these - just before the CD4E suffered from all sorts of control failures - and Sun gear failures. Based on the way I would get to see them - I believe they ALL did not have enough cooling capacity - and would have worked longer with an external transmission oil cooler.

THe early Hyundai's also tended to run hot and overhear more often than other cars - which also led to Transmission failures.

I've never owned a Mazda which is a shame. I can say for sure I would have been a loyal Mazda guy if they would have added two words to their product brochure. The words they needed to add were "Engine Option." I loved all the RX7s and the RX8 but could not bring myself to own that terrible boat anchor rotary. Worse mileage than a Corvette of the time period with 1/2 the HP, zero torque and even less reliability. It's no wonder the company floundered. Had they given up on the piece of junk after 5 years of failed development they may have saved the company.

Had Mazda done an MX7 and an MX8 with a V6 under the hood, sales of those sports cars would have been much higher. A rotary is fun to experience, but it's definitely NOT the performance option to want.