Mazda

Life began in 1920 as a machine tool maker called Toyo Cork Kogyo Co, and 11 years later the first Mazda vehicle – the Mazda-go three-wheeler truck – arrived. After making rifles during WW2, Mazda produced its first four-wheeled truck (Romper) in 1958 and its first passenger car (RS60 Coupe) in 1960. The early ’60s saw Mazda form a partnership with NSU and Felix Wankel to produce and develop the pistonless rotary engine, persevering with the technology after the others abandoned it with great success – thanks to heroic models such as the 1978 RX-7 sports car and the No.55 787B race car that used reliability to trump faster rivals for its 1991 Le Mans win. The RX-8 sold from 2003 to 2013 was the last Mazda to use a rotary, the rev-happy engine’s notorious thirst succumbing to increasingly strict emissions regulations. From 1979 to 2010, Ford invested in Mazda to share a number of facilities, platforms and engines. In 2002 Mazda started introducing a raft of new-generation models, including the Mazda 3 hatch that in 2011 would become the first imported model to become Australia’s best-selling car.