Mazda 6: Excellent 100th-anniversary edition is sound but underwhelming

Mazda celebrated its centenary in 2020 - but hardly anyone outside the company noticed. And, true to form, its special anniversary trim Mazda 6 is sound but underwhelming

Historically a fine, solid and worthy car, the 6 has only sold 26 units here so far this year.

xxx Mazda 6 xxxx
Rating	★★★☆☆
Price	From € 34,495 - €47,695 as tested
Engine	A fine unit, but looks more and more prehistoric as the days pass
The Spec	Excellent in this 'anniversary' trim, but it adds a helluva lot to the bottom line
Verdict	A dinosaur waiting for a meteor to hit

It’s almost certain that outside the confines of the Mazda Corporation, the 100th anniversary of the company’s founding last year went almost unnoticed.

The event, obviously, did not spark street parties in Cahersiveen or Mooncoin, despite evidence to suggest that the Japanese carmaker enjoys reasonable popularity in both those towns, or even very many others across rural Ireland, where the brand has considerable support for its varied and generally excellent product line-up.

Although they were not rolling out the bunting and lighting bonfires at the crossroads for this significant Mazda birthday, the company itself was rolling out a few special models to mark its’ rise from cork-maker (believe it or not) to global automotive power.

Established in Hiroshima in January 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., the company was not an overnight success. Indeed it had to be saved from bankruptcy in the late ‘20’s before moving into the machine tooling business in the 1930’s and subsequently making a lot of Yen as an arms supplier to the Japanese government during WWII.

In 1931, Mazda did unveil its first stab at vehicular transport when it made the Mazda-Go, a sort of three-wheel open truck that was heavily and successfully marketed as a motorised rickshaw. But it was not until 1960 that it made its’ first actual car, the R360.

Looking like an overgrown wheelbarrow with an engine and four seats, the R360 was actually of the Japanese ‘Kai car’ genre, a heavily regulated type of small city vehicle which could only be of certain dimensions and be powered by tiny engines – initially of only up to 360cc in size.

Around this time as it diversified and expanded into the car world, the Mazda boardroom began a tradition within the company of being different to the norm. They initially did a deal with German manufacturer NSU (soon to be subsumed into the Audi family) to build and market their rotary Wankel engines across Japan and Asia.

Certainly, the interior has been gussied up considerably and although not quite up to, say, Audi standards, it is considerably better than most Japanese rivals.

Indeed, it was the only manufacturer of note to persevere with the Wankel design and the company’s efforts in this regard came to a head with a remarkable win in the Le Mans 24-Hour classic sportscar race in 1991 with a 787B driven by Johnny Herbert, Volker Weidler and Bertrand Gachot.

There is also an Irish connection to that win as the car was largely developed by Sligo-born David Kennedy, who was also one of this country’s first-ever Grand Prix drivers.

But I digress, as from the early 1970’s Mazda became a true player on the international automotive scene, with its products not only making a big dent on its home market in Japan, but also across America and Canada. Around this time, however, financial instability once again reared its ugly head and Mazda nearly went under once more.

Poor production, a reliance on those rotary engines and an inability to adjust to excess inventory, drove the company to the brink, but then an alliance with Ford (which took a 24.5% stake in Mazda in 1979) and the production of the Familia range for North America – better known in these parts as the 323 – saved its corporate reputation.

Since then it has gone from strength to strength and bolstered by the continuing success of its MX-5 sport coupe, as well as the development of its 121, 323 and 626 models (which subsequently gestated into the 2,3 and 6 models) and such as the RX-8 and the RX-7, not to mention the CX line of SÚVs.

Now, with production touching the 1.5m unit mark annually and nearly 50,000 employees worldwide (and having also largely bought back the Ford shareholding), Mazda is one of the strongest and fastest growing companies in the automotive world.

Sadly – and despite the support of its fans in Cahersiveen and Mooncoin – Mazda has never really touched any sales heights in Ireland. It does have a hardcore coterie of supporters here and a dedicated dealer network, but neither of which has allowed it the sort of penetration it deserves.

This week’s tester, the Mazda 6, is a case in point. Historically a fine, solid and worthy car, the 6 has only sold 26 units here so far this year. Indeed, Mazda itself languishes only 18th in the Irish sales charts to the end May. This is not the sort of performance it should be achieving.

That our test car is an ‘anniversary’ version of the 6 and therefore crammed with all sorts of added specification and technology, only really underlines that point.

Handsome and all as it is and brimming with loads of 100th Anniversary décor as well as the aforementioned spec and tech, there is a feeling this is a car beyond its time.

It might be that it is a saloon and therefore a dying breed in the face of a sustained and growing SUV assault, but it is still good enough to register on most people’s automotive radars. Like many in Mazda, I’m at a loss to explain this dramatic lack of market penetration, but there may be one or two things here that go some way to explaining it.

Handsome and all as it is and brimming with loads of 100th Anniversary décor as well as the aforementioned spec and tech, there is a feeling this is a car beyond its time. Like an OAP at a rave, if you will.

Resolutely following your own instincts and finding mechanical and engineering solutions that are innovative and ingenious is all very well, but it does not guarantee popularity. The choice of a 2.5 litre four-cylinder petrol engine might please some, but not the many.

Although from the company’s pioneering Skyactiv-G range of units, it still only outputs 191 bhp and a fairly paltry 258 Nm of torque, which translates into a top speed of 204 km/h and a 0-100 km/h time of 8.1 seconds and will return an unimpressive 7.4 l/km (37.8 mpg).

On top of that, it is allied to a regular automatic gearbox and not one of the more sophisticated twin-clutch units that prevail these days. This means it holds on to gears for a lot longer than you might expect and kick-downs tend to be vigorous rather than smooth and seamless. You really do have to tell this car what to do, rather than it sussing things out for you.

Certainly, the interior has been gussied up considerably and although not quite up to, say, Audi standards, it is considerably better than most Japanese rivals. So too the handling and ride which have a more premium feel than any of their regular countrymen.

It has to be suspected that this is a car for certain tastes – and in this ‘Anniversary’ trim, slightly expensive tastes – and that’s what might limit appeal somewhat. It is a satisfying car to drive and live with, sure, but in these days of rampant SUVs and increasingly popular electrics, it seems more than a little anachronistic.

I’ve always liked the 6 – and Mazdas of any hue really – but this is one that time appears to have passed by without anyone at the company really noticing. 

It is a good car, without doubt, but it would appear that all too few people are sitting up and taking any notice.