Word: mazda
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Once in a great while, an automaker creates a car that sends rivals into a + funk and motorists into a covetous swoon. Right now that vehicle is Mazda's new MX-5 Miata, a curvaceous, two-seat convertible that is intended to combine the look and feel of mid-century roadsters with the reliability of modern engineering. The first few thousand Miatas began arriving at Mazda dealerships earlier this month, and sold out instantly...
...idea for the car came out of Mazda's research-and-design center in California, where planners foresaw demand for a car reminiscent of the European roadsters of the 1950s and '60s. Miata's original designer, Mark Jordan, whose father is head of design at GM, drew his inspiration from such legendary nameplates as M.G., Austin-Healy and Lotus...
...Miata is a rolling rebuke to Detroit, which has continued to lose ground to Japanese automakers amid slumping car sales. Mazda spent only about $100 million to develop the Miata, a fraction of what U.S. manufacturers typically spend to bring out a new model. For one thing, the Miata is devoid of digital display panels, electronic suspension and other costly gewgaws favored by Detroit's Big Three. Instead, Mazda lavished attention on Miata's engine, a 1.6-liter, four-cylinder model that uses more valves per cylinder (four instead of two) to provide greater zip. Mazda also focused on such...
...Mazda, which is building the Miata in a plant in Hiroshima, plans to sell about 20,000 of the cars in the U.S. during 1989 and 40,000 next year. That is only a small portion of the 10 million-car U.S. market, but the Miata represents another little dent in Detroit's battered pride...
...With their strong thirst for information from other nations and a growing need to disseminate their documents around the world, the Japanese urgently require computers that can translate. A few machines, such as the Toshiba model and Fujitsu's Atlas system, are already in operation, helping Japanese companies like Mazda translate technical material. A powerful computer called SHALT, designed by IBM Japan, is being used extensively for in-house translations. In 1988 SHALT converted four IBM manuals from English into Japanese. This year the target is 20 to 30. Predicts Kiyotaka Yasui, manager of the language and image- technology section...