Word: mazda
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...sports car in years has so quickly won the hearts of U.S. car buffs as Mazda's pert Miata MX-5. But Detroit automakers are not content to sit back and watch foreign roadsters whiz by. Next month Ford will begin selling its own cosmopolitan contender, the Mercury Capri. The car's body was designed in Italy, and its engine and chassis were developed jointly by Ford and Mazda. The Detroit automaker has a 25% stake in the Japanese company. The convertible, which will be built at a Ford plant near Melbourne, will be the first Australian-made car sold...
...Mazda MX-5 Miata. The Japanese were already building more reliable, cheaper cars than American automakers; suddenly, they are also producing a more splendid-looking car. Designed in Mazda's California R.-and-D. center by Mark Jordan, son of General Motor's design chief, the 1989 Miata is the first production car to share the decade's penchant for alluding to other eras: not just a convertible, but the sweet, plump, rounded lines of '50s-style sports cars...
...patriotic as I am. And like you, I believe in free trade: you should buy whatever damn car you please. (And, yes, I know your Japanese car may have been built here, and that your Miata, built over there, is part American because Ford owns 25% of Mazda...
...Love your car!" The young woman, who is quite pretty, has skipped across the main street of my New Hampshire town to say this. "Thanks," I tell her modestly, wondering if it would be all right to twirl my mustache. I borrowed this Mazda MX-5 Miata three days ago. People edge away when I park my usual vehicle, a large black four-wheel-drive Ford plow truck with red pinstriping and air horns. But the Miata gets passersby smiling and talking: teenagers, old couples, a fellow dressed in muscles and a camouflage shirt at a tire store, bicyclists...
Since the downturn began, Japanese manufacturers have made even greater inroads than in healthy times. Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Mazda posted higher sales and gains in U.S. market share in the first half of 1989, largely at the expense of European imports, Chrysler and GM. Of the Big Three, only Ford managed to raise its market share, because its sales slump has been smaller than that of its rivals...