Who’d ever guess a brand that aces with the young-at-heart has just hit its century?

MAZDA marking its 100th year with the business it is best known for nowadays is a reminder that, like most car brands, it started out doing something else.

Still, vehicles are its game now, so the 100th Anniversary Special Edition models that will be availing to Kiwi customers soon are the best carriers of the celebratory mood.

Think of these as being a recognition of what could be called a corker of an idea, which traces back to January 30, 1920, in the make’s home city of Hiroshima, Japan. More about that in a minute.

But, obviously, with vehicles by far and away being what it’s best known for nowadays, they’re the best products to tie back to a special moment in time.

Basically, all the passenger models Mazda makes are coming to the party, with a special trim that’ll has gone into production and will remain available until March next year. None are in New Zealand yet. Mazda NZ will announce more about what cars it will offer and when in coming months.

The special vehicles are easily identified. They’re in a white (Snow Flake White Pearl Mica)-and-burgundy two-tone. Also included are burgundy floor carpets, specially-embossed floor mats and head rests, unique key fobs and centre wheelcaps with a 100th Anniversary logo. And, of course, a special badge.

The colour scheme is all part of the story, being a hat-tip to Mazda’s first passenger car, the R360 Coupe. Which came out 60 years ago.

So what was Mazda up to for the 40 years prior to that? Well, plenty of stuff.

The company’s genesis goes back to the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co Ltd, which was founded in Hiroshima. As the name suggests, it was an industry that made products from cork.

Seven years later the company changed its name to Toyo Kogyo Co Ltd,  and four years after that it moved into the manufacture of vehicles when it introduced a three-wheel ‘truck’ called Mazda-Go, which  was powered by an air-cooled single cylinder motorcycle engine.

This vehicle was the world’s first engine-powered rickshaw, and it also represented first use of the word Mazda, which derives from Ahura Mazda – the god of harmony, intelligence and wisdom. This in the hope that it would brighten the image of the little vehicle. Well, that’s how the company history relates it.

There has also always been a theory that the word had a close association with the company’s founder, Jujiro Matsuda, whose family name was pronounced very close to “Mazda”.

Whatever the reason, the little rickshaw’s name obviously worked, because the Mazda-Go and its successors went on to enjoy a strong career right through into the post-WW2 era, when it began to be replaced by a range of three-wheeled Mazda trucks such as the K360 and the T-2000.

And of course that in turn led to Toyo Kogyo turning its attention to passenger vehicles, which resulted in the 1960 launch of one of the original Japanese ‘Kei’ cars, the famous Mazda R360 Coupe.

And that’s the car that Mazda Motor Corporation is now honouring with its range of 100th Anniversary Special Edition vehicles.

Sales are scheduled to kick off in Japan from June, firstly with the Mazda, Mazda3 and CX-3, followed from July with the CX-30, CX-5, CX-8, MX-5 and RF, and finally from September with the Mazda6.

Then it will be the turn of the rest of the world – New Zealand included – to get their hands on the celebratory cars.

In so many respects the little R360 Coupe is the ideal car for Mazda to use as the centrepoint of its centennial celebrations.

By today’s standards the car looked quite weird. Maybe even kooky. And also by today’s standards it was seriously underpowered – it offered all of 12kW of power and 22Nm of torque.

But this was 1960, a time when Japan was still recovering economically and socially from the ravages of World War 2, and the only way most families could afford a vehicle was to opt for the insurance and tax breaks on offer with the so-called Kei car, which had to be the smallest highway-legal passenger vehicle.

When the first Kei cars were built in 1949, the rules said their engines must have cubic capacities of no more than 150cc. That was increased to 360cc in late 1955, and that immediately led to development of a raft of micro-mini cars including such product as the Suzuki Suzulight and the Subaru 360.

And then, in May 1960, the Mazda R360 Coupe. The little two-door 2+2 had a wheelbase of just 1753mm, weighed 380kg, and was powered by a rear-mounted 356cc engine that developed the 12kW and 22Nm. To put those figures into some sort of perspective, the smallest Mazda you can buy in New Zealand today, the Mazda2, has a 2570mm wheelbase, weighs 1100kg, and has a 1496cc engine that develops 82kW and 144Nm.

But 60 years ago, the Japanese loved the R360. It immediately proved so successful that more than 23,000 of them were sold during the remainder of that year, and it soon gained a massive 65 per cent of the domestic Kei car market. 

As a result, not only did it sell for six years, but it spawned other product – a convertible, a front-engined pickup truck, and perhaps most significantly a four-door sedan called the P360 ‘Carol’ that remained on the market for eight years until 1970.

Actually you can still buy a new Mazda Carol in Japan – but these days it is a rebadged Suzuki Alto. As a result there are plenty of used import Suzuki-built Carols in New Zealand, and we at MotoringNZ.com are aware of at least one 1962 Carol here, but we don’t know if there are any of the original R360 Coupes in the country. We hope there is. Maybe an owner somewhere can contact us to let us know what it is like to drive?

From a technology perspective, what was admirable about the R360 Coupe was its innovation. It was the first use of a four-stroke engine in a passenger vehicle, it had a torque converter, a four-wheel independent suspension, and there was significant use of alloy in an effort to keep its weight down.

Little wonder then that its manufacturer went on to produce the technologically advanced product it is famous for. Product such as all the rotary-engined Mazdas that began with the Cosmo Sport in 1967, the famous MX-5 roadster  from 1989, and all the SkyActiv features in today’s passenger vehicles.

It’s all worth celebrating, isn’t it? So happy 100th birthday, Mazda.