Mazda Motor Corporation

The Mazda Motor Corporation is an associate company of the Ford Motor Company and is headquartered in Fuchu, Aki, Hiroshima, Japan. A handful of Mazda vehicles have been rebadged and sold under the Ford name in the United States. The founder of the company is Jujiro Matsuda who founded Mazda in 1920. In 2007, Mazda manufactured close to 1.3 million vehicles for worldwide distribution. They employ close to 40,000 people and their revenue has reached almost $4 billion. Mazda has produced millions of vehicles since its founding in 1920 and has become a world power in vehicle manufacturing over the past two decades.

As with many businesses and car manufacturing companies, Mazda has changed its logo as the years have progressed. The very first logo for Mazda was designed and used from 1962-1975.

The company's second logo was used from 1991-1992:

From 1992-1997 the company's logo looked like this:

The company's current logo, which debuted in 1997, is this:

Mazda has produced more than 50 different models of cars since its inception in 1920 and one of its most popular models has been the Mazda Miata. The Miata was first developed in 1989 and is still being manufactured today. The Miata is in the Roadster class and is assembled in Hiroshima, Japan.

There are three generations of the Mazda Miata. The first generation was from 1989-1997, the second generation was from 1999-2005 and the third generation began in 2006 and is presently still developing vehicles. The Mazda Miata is available as a Roadster and as a Hardtop and the most recent models are available with 5-speed manual transmission, 6-speed automatic transmission and a 6-speed manual transmission.

Aside from their production of sports cars and compact cars, the Mazda Motor Corporation has also been trying to develop their own hybrid car for the past couple of decades. Towards the end of the 2008 calendar year Mazda is scheduled to release its very first hybrid vehicle. It is named the Premacy Hydrogen RE and it is a compact minivan. The first few prototypes of the vehicles have shown developers that it can travel up to 120 miles on hybrid energy.

Mazda, as with the majority of other vehicle manufacturing companies, has thrown its hand into the racing world as much as possible over the past few decades. Mazda first debuted in the racing world in 1968 when they competed in the Marathon de la Route. They entered two of the same vehicles, the Mazda Cosmo Sport 110S. The race lasted 84 consecutive hours and one of the vehicles finished in fourth place and the other lost an axle after the 81st hour of the competition. The Mazda Motor Corporation still races their sport vehicles today and have been racing continuously since their racing debut in 1968.

The Star Mazda Series is one of the most popular lines of racing cars manufactured by Mazda and is the most popular when it comes to sponsorships. This line of cars debuted for racing in 1991 and is a part of the Formula Mazda Racing team.