Mazda sells 10 millionth car in America

The first car Mazda ever sold in America was the R100, a cute lil' two-door fastback that was, unsurprisingly, rotary-powered. The year was 1970. Iggy Pop had made that much explicitly clear with "1970." Just imagine how weird it must have been for Americans to wrap their minds around some tiny Japanese upstart, selling a car approximately the size of a 1970 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham's wheelwell, powered by -- what's this, German technology? So, uh, the thing just spins? What do you mean, it's a giant triangle?

Your average Sinclair lad may have taken some time to wrap his mind around it, but fortunately Mazda persevered for much, much longer. Forty-three years later, it is celebrating the 10 millionth car sold in these United States. No, it's not a rotary. Hopefully there will be some among the next 10 million cars.

The 10 millionth Mazda was a Mazda3 sold by Continental Mazda of Naperville, Illinois, to 26-year-old guitar teacher Lauren Carter. This was her first new car, ever. Mazda promptly swooped in and replaced the 2013, the outgoing model, with a shiny and bright red 2014 similar to what we drove a few months ago. The car she had originally bought will be forever enshrined within Mazda's collection. Not many can say that their first new car has such historical significance.

Mazda
Mazda North America President and CEO Jim O'Sullivan presents Lauren Carter the keys to an even newer Mazda3 than the one she bought.

"Mazda's cars are designed for people who are looking to get more out of their vehicle," said Carter, perhaps with the cold breath of Mazda PR cat wranglers upon her back. "The Mazda3 is fun to drive and I can fit my guitar and amplifier in the trunk. For me, there's nothing better!"

Forty-three years of Mazdas in America has produced some incredible machinery, as well as some oddballs. Looking back upon the past four decades, we pick some from Column A, some from Column B. From the only company to ever stick with the rotary engine, we would expect nothing less. We should be thankful that Mazda, a company that has seen its fair share of successes and struggles, has not yet been chased out of America -- because they've built some weird stuff.

Jonathan Wong
Jonathan Wong's 1994 RX-7 doing what it does best.

RX-7

No list is complete without the epitome of Mazda's mad rotary experimentation, the RX-7. What's there to be said about the RX-7 that a million mad, stark raving mad fans, their knuckles skinned to the ground from replacing apex seals, haven't already shouted from across the parking lot at Sevenstock? I kid. Well, we kid. Hey, maybe there will be another one. Doesn't seem likely, but we sure hope so. But today, we have to console ourselves with some neato keychains.

323 GTX

Mazda built the 323 GTX for Group A rallying, and needed 5,000 examples to do so. Pretty easy sell for a turbocharged, intercooled, 132-horsepower five-speed AWD rally rocket, right? Alas, this was before the heady days of Subaru versus Mitsubishi, and legions of nerds hanging onto every one of McRae's Scots-accented post-race commentary through Scramble-Vision at 3 in the morning during WRC Catalunya. Hence, Mazda brought it to our shores two years too late, sold just over 1,000 of them, and pulled the plug a year later.

Nowadays, you can pick one up from West Orange, New Jersey, for the thrifty sum of entirely too much money. Is it worth it for rally-derived greatness? After you buy one, go ahead and tell us. Presumably in between bites of Top Ramen.

Blake Z. Rong
It should be said that the author's Miata is in no way representative of a current Miata. It's better.

Miata

I mean, look at it! It's the best! It's the best! It's number one! Hoosiers, bro! (For a more nuanced view, look no further.)

Mazda
Mazda entered two Cosmo 110S cars into the 84-hour Marathon de la Route to prove its rotary's reliability. One finished fourth.

Cosmo

They never sold the Cosmo in America, but mentioning great Mazdas without the Cosmo is like mentioning a list of great presidents without Jefferson: sometimes you just gotta give the boot to Rutherford B. Hayes.

Which Cosmo shall we pick? The beautiful Space Age Sixties icon? Or the beautiful Nineties Eunos grand tourer with a three-rotor 20B engine that we could only look on with the utmost of envy? What about the one we did get? (Mazda "Americanized" it so much that the rest of the world was turned off -- and, it seems, so were Americans.) How about the one pictured above, that entered the grueling Marathon de la Route endurance race at the N

By Blake Z. Rong