History/driving impressions originally published in AutoWeek April 11, 1994; republished by the author The Mazda Cosmo should have been a runaway success. After all, it was a car that Toyo Kogyo, as the Hiroshima-based Mazda was then known, specifically designed…
Originally included in Mazda RX-7 Sports Car Color History, by John Matras, published by Motorbooks International, 1994; republished by the author Just looking at the first-generation RX-7 was enough to provoke speculation about Mazda’s Rotary sportster’s appearance as a convertible….
History originally published in AutoWeek June 4, 1984 A little-known chapter in American automotive history began in 1958 in a small white building on the Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, grounds of Curtiss-Wright, the aeronautical firm with roots dating back to the…
History originally published in AutoWeek May 7, 1984 The thrill was back, they told us, and how right they were. Emissions controls, beginning in the 1968 model year, had gradually turned most new cars into performance eunuchs. But Mazda was…
History originally published in AutoWeek March 12, 1984 How very frustrating, how maddeningly, fist-clinching frustrating it must have been to the men who were NSU to look back upon the Ro 80 and realize how close the car and the…
First published in the book, Sports Car Color History Mazda RX-7 (1994) by John Matras 1989 Mazda RX-7 Infini IV; photos by John Matras The first Infini was a 1987 Mazda 323. But it was more than an ordinary 323,…