Mazda's Zoom-Zoom

Nobody asked me, but . . .

I can count on the index finger of either hand the number of auto execs I know who carry a commercial driver’s license in their wallet. Robert Davis, Senior VP of Product Development & Quality for Mazda is the one. It has nothing to do with a Walter Mitty desire to become a weekend, long-haul, 18-wheel truck driver when he retires from Mazda. But it does have everything to do with one of the major reasons Mazda vehicles introduced these past dozen years or so not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk, or in this instance: drive the drive.

I’m alluding to zoom-zoom, of course, Mazda corporate speak for the company’s passion for creating cars with sharp dynamic focus. You can pay much more for an Ultimate Driving Machine, but these days I defy you to name another auto company building more affordable fun-to-drive vehicles than Mazda.

I have a pretty long history with Mazda in America, going back to the original Mazda Cosmo Sport, that diminutive sports car Toyo Kogyo introduced in the late Sixties that also happens to be powered by Mazda’s very first production rotary engine. The car was never officially exported to America. But this was at the beginnings of the “smog era” in America and the rotary engine, while viewed as a technical curiosity by most, was being evaluated by the Big Three to determine if it had any exhaust emissions advantages versus its conventional piston-engine competition.

I was a Chrysler engineer at the time working in the emissions lab. And one of my jobs every morning was to check the nocturnal emissions of vehicles that had been soaking in hot sheds over night. These evaporative emission sheds were constructed of two-by-fours encased in leak-proof plastic sheeting. I was one of only a few engineers small enough to fit behind the wheel of the right-hand-drive Cosmo.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but those Cosmo “drives” in Chrysler’s Highland Park road test garage were the beginnings of a three-decades-plus connection with the people and cars of TK that includes participating in the launch of the first RX-7 in Hiroshima, racing an RX-3 at Portland International Raceway, co-authoring three books on Mazda with Jack Yamaguchi and sharing baseball war stories and swapping caps with Kenichi Yamamoto, who shares the title “Father of the Rotary,” along with its inventor Felix Wankel, for his willingness to sacrifice everything by refusing to abandon what most others viewed as a hopeless task: creating a production engine from an incredibly crude Wankel prototype. (That’s a very long one-sentence paragraph, but take a deep breath and deal with it!)

In April of 1963 Yamamoto created what he called his “47 rotary warriors,” a handpicked group of TK’s best engineers chosen to work on the rotary engine. Joining this team a few months later was a recent university graduate, Takaharu Kobayakawa, affectionately known as Koby by his American friends.

I first met Koby on a trip to Hiroshima with Road & Track for a sneak preview of the second-generation RX-7. At the time Koby was assigned to public relations, broadening his automotive experiences by working with American journalists and learning first-hand what American enthusiasts wanted in a sports car. Neither of us knew that the other was an engineer. That happened later when Koby “reinvented” himself as the chief engineer for the third-gen RX-7 and I was one of three American journalists invited to Hiroshima to provide feedback on a very early development mule.

Mating that first rotary to the Cosmo Sport proved to be a perfect marriage, but Yamamoto realized that to a skeptical public weaned on piston-engine automobiles the rotary was little more than a curiosity. Yamamoto decided that the best way to overcome this skepticism of this new technology was to go racing, and the perfect venue became the Marathon de la Route, an endurance race that started and finished in Liege, Belgium, driving through mountain roads to the famed Nürburgring, where the cars would race for 84 hours straight. A Cosmo sport finished fourth behind two 911s and a Lancia Fulvia, an amazing result for the unproven rotary and Cosmo.

Twenty-three years later, in 1991, a 4-rotor Mazda 787B became the only rotary-powered car to win the most prestigious of all endurance races, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Overseeing this victory was Koby, the 48th rotary warrior.

Which in a roundabout (also known as a rotary) fashion gets me back to Robert Davis and his need for an 18-wheeler driver’s license. Robert is a weekend warrior, owner of a racing team that campaigns five RX-8s and three Spec Miatas. He’s been racing Mazdas for 11 years and typically runs 8-12 races a year. He’s attended the SCCA Runoffs seven times with a best qualifying of 3rd and a best finish of 7th. He didn’t race last year. Instead Davis managed the team and they went on to finish 1st, 2nd, 4th and 9th. He’ll be back behind the wheel of an RX-8 in Touring 3 this year. And sometimes he assumes truck driving as well as race driving duties. Ergo, the commercial driver’s license.

Davis’s passion for racing directly influences the cars he helps plan and develop at Mazda. Want to know why a Mazda communicates so well with the driver, has such instinctive steering and road feel, has unbreakable brakes and is fitted with supportive seats and great ergonomics? Thank Robert Davis and his band of merry engineers who understand what fun-to-drive is all about.

An Aye for the i

Nobody asked me but . . .

When you’re driving one of only two examples of a car currently in America, you’re bound to draw some attention. When you’re controlling it from the side of the car that is opposite to the norm in America, that’s another attention grabber. But when that car also is so small that it looks like it was dropped off directly from Lilliput, be prepared for being stared at—a lot—and answering questions, lots of questions.

Say hello to the Mitsubishi i, a car so cute and huggable both Barbie and her Bratz counterparts wish they owned two of them. Heck, Mattel probably wishes it owned the manufacturing rights. They could crank them out on the same production line that spits out Barbie and Ken dolls.

What exactly is a Mitsu i? Think tall, narrow and short. A car without hang-ups or overhangs. A 649 cc, 3-cylinder engine with a turbo. Tires so narrow, they would embarrass most current motorcycles. A parking requirement about half the length of a Maybach, but room to comfortably seat four adults.

There’s a chart here to allow you to directly compare the i to the Mini Cooper, the Maybach 62 and the Toyota Corolla, but here are a few salient numbers. The i is almost a foot shorter than the Mini and the Maybach has a wheelbase that is nearly a foot-and-a-half longer than the i. The i is 8 inches narrower than the Mini or Corolla but the Maybach is a whopping 20 inches wider. And the Maybach’s engine is dressed to the nines: It’s got about nine times as much displacement, horsepower and torque as the Mitsubishi’s diminutive 3-cylinder engine.

Mitsubishi is quick to tell you that it doesn’t plan to sell the i in the U.S. But they are evaluating it here to measure consumer reaction to its size, shape and styling, among other factors. One of those “other” factors is the strong possibility of the next generation Mitsu i being a battery-powered electric car.

Mitsubishi introduced the third generation of its battery-powered electric car about a month ago at an international alternative vehicle symposium in Yokohama, Japan. That car is based on the i. Mitsubishi says the electric car has a top speed of 80 mph and can travel 80-100 miles on a single charge. Data collected during daily real-world use in Japan will be used to assess the commercial prospects of battery-powered electric cars, Mitsubishi says.

The i’s platform features a rear-midship layout that mounts the engine forward of the rear axle line, which is ideal for conversion to electric motor and batteries. The rear-midship layout also provides an effective front crumple zone, realizing a happy marriage between roomier interior space and improved impact safety. And with the wheels pushed out to the very corners of the car, the i has an extremely long wheelbase vs. its overall length. Its wheelbase is only two inches less than the Corolla’s, but the Toyota is nearly four feet longer overall! This results in agile handling and a surprisingly comfortable ride.

Driven sans passengers, the i delivers sprightly performance and a sporty exhaust note reminiscent of the Maserati Merak. Four adults fit comfortably within the i’s seemingly short and narrow confines, but each additional occupant places a heavy demand on the i’s rather miniscule 63 horsepower. So with four aboard plan your freeway passing maneuvers well in advance.

But keep the pedal to the metal and the i’s mettle shows: It will run all day long at 80+ mph and still sip fuel at a pass-the-pumps 45 mpg.

Driving the fun, funky Mitsu i is a smile-a-minute experience. It’s urban and urbane. A jellybean on wheels. I can’t wait for the battery-powered i. It should be an electrifying experience.

Mea Culpa

Nobody asked me but . . .

A couple of days ago I railed about Ford renaming the Five Hundred, the Taurus. And I was wrong when I said Ford would probably rename the Montego, the Merkur. Instead, Ford has decided to call it the Saybull.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe!

Nobody asked me, but . . .

The press release I received today (see below) regarding Ford and the Taurus name really has my blood boiling. Why in God’s name—or anybody’s name for that matter—would Ford place such an honored and respected name on such an average car? Does Ford really think renaming the car is going to change consumers’ opinions?

I’ve been watching with positive vibes, the changes that Alan Mulally has been making at Ford, but this is certainly not one of his better ideas. Why not hold off making the change until a much improved Five Hund . . . oops . . . T****s worthy of the name is introduced? Until this happens, I'll consider the car a Fraud Taurus.

Let me guess. The Mercury Montego version is going to be rebadged as the Merkur!


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Ford Motor Co. is planning to announce that its Five Hundred sedan will be renamed the Taurus, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

The news wire said Ford executives would announce the plan on Wednesday, Feb. 7, at the Chicago auto show.

No Ford spokesman was immediately available to comment.

The Taurus nameplate is a Ford icon. It first appeared in December 1985 as a 1986 model and fueled a sales revival at the automaker. The Taurus reigned as the top-selling car in the United States from 1992 through 1996, but gave up that title to the Toyota Camry. Sales continued to fall in following years. In 2006, Ford built the Taurus solely for use in fleets. Production was ended in October.