January 30, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of Mazda's founding, and to commemorate its century-long history, Mazda's headquarters in Japan held a special celebration of its 100th anniversary. 100 years, for ordinary people, may be just an ordinary life, but for Mazda, this is 100 years is full of glory and tribulations.
Rotor, Le Mans champion, Chuang chi blue sky, soul design, compression engine, etc., a century of experience has given Mazda a group of loyal fans around the world. At the same time, the dedication to the fuel engine and the rotor engine has also made Mazda known as "stubborn" in people's minds. On the occasion of Mazda's 100th anniversary, let's take a look back at the important events in Mazda's century-old history.
Cork factory "made a fortune"
Founded 100 years ago, Mazda first started by making soft wood, when it was not called Mazda. On January 30, 1920, Matsuda Shigejiro established Toyo Cork Industries Co., Ltd. in Hiroshima, Japan, engaged in the production of cork stoppers for sake bottles.
History is always strikingly similar, and the founder of every car company also has an amazing mechanical talent, and Matsuda Shigejiro is no exception. In 1927, under the leadership of Shigejiro Matsuda, Toyo Cork Industrial Co., Ltd. was renamed Toyo Industries Co., Ltd., although the word "cork" was reduced in the name, but the scope of business was expanded a lot, and then began to enter the motor vehicle manufacturing industry, which was also the prototype of Mazda.
In 1931, Mazda appeared, and Toyo Industries officially launched its first motor vehicle, the MazdaGo, although this was only a three-wheeled motorcycle with a cargo bucket in the rear, but its appearance also represented the beginning of Mazda's history of car manufacturing. It was also during this period that Mazda also quietly entered the Chinese market, and at that time, Jiangsu, Shanghai and other regions also appeared in the figure of "Mazda Small Three Wheels".
▲Ahura Mazda
The term Mazda is similar to the surname (Matsuda) of Mazda brand founder Shigejiro Matsuda. In Persian, Mazda has more meanings. The supreme deity of ancient Persian Zoroastrianism was named Ahura Mazda, which means "wise, rational, and reconciling" in Persian. It can be seen that the renaming of the company Mazda Mazda is full of matsuda Shigejiro's desires.
Cheng also rotor defeat also rotor
With the development of time, people's living standards are getting higher and higher, and three-wheeled pickup trucks cannot meet people's needs. As a result, Mazda plans to launch passenger cars. At that time, Mazda's engine technology was still relatively rudimentary, and there were many technical bottlenecks in vehicle production that needed to be solved.
▲The initial rotor engine
Therefore, when the immature rotor engine technology appeared in Japan, Mazda took the lead in introducing this technology, and through years of running-in and research and development, it took the lead in launching the Cosmo Sport with a rotor engine in the global market.
Cosmo Sport has a very cutting-edge design concept, although its displacement is less than 1L, but the power is nearly 80kW, such power performance also makes this car brilliant in international competitions, which is also the continuation and development of Mazda's sports genes.
Subsequently, the rotor engine brought a bigger surprise to Mazda. In the 59th 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991, Mazda came out of nowhere, breaking the "monopoly" of European and American automakers on the Le Mans championship and becoming the first Japanese car company to win the Le Mans championship.
The model is the Mazda 787B, equipped with a four-rotor engine codenamed R26B, each rotor has three spark plugs, 654cc displacement per rotor, a total displacement of 2622cc, a maximum output of 900 horsepower, and a maximum speed of more than 10,000. It was this model that helped Mazda win the Le Mans championship.
Unfortunately, success is also a rotor, and defeat is also a rotor. To this day, it is still said that the rotor engine is a displacement of 1L, an output of 2L, and a fuel consumption of 3L. Yes, the powerful output of the rotor engine needs to be supported by high fuel consumption. Then due to the global oil crisis and increasingly stringent emission regulations, parts life problems and other factors, the development of rotor engines has been limited, in order to continue to develop rotor engine Mazda was on the verge of bankruptcy.
There has always been a joke that Mazda has been trapped in the cycle of selling cars to make money, playing with rotors, bankruptcy, continuing to sell cars to make money, continuing to play with rotors, and continuing to go bankrupt. Mazda's name for "stubbornness" also comes from this. Fortunately, Mazda then knew that nothing could be done, so it launched Chuangchi Blue Sky technology.
"Stubborn" to the internal combustion engine
With the advent of the era of automobile electrification, many car companies have launched new energy models. It is reasonable to say that Mazda should also join this trend, but perhaps Mazda has always retained the spirit of study of rotor engines, and after the introduction of Chuang chi blue sky technology, Mazda is also obsessed with fuel engines and began to play black technology.
Mazda launched a gasoline engine, SKYACTIV-X, with a compression-ignition model in the past few years, combining gasoline and diesel engines to create an engine that has both advantages but no disadvantages. According to the data, the 2.0L skyactiv-X can output up to 190Ps, and in terms of fuel consumption, Mazda said that the 100-kilometer fuel consumption of the Mazda 3 equipped with a 2.0L SKYACTIV-X engine will reach about 3.3L, and such fuel economy has reached the hybrid level.
From birth to mass production, a technology has to pass the test of time. Although Mazda's SKYACTIV-X engine looks beautiful, at present, the model equipped with this engine is only available in Japan, and it is still far from entering the Chinese market. And even if it enters the domestic market, whether the SKYACTIV-X engine can "adapt" to China's diverse car environment is also a big problem.
Although the SKYACTIV-X engine has earned people's attention technically, its advantages are not obvious. Perhaps Mazda itself recognized this and said that it would launch new energy models for China in 2020.
This hundred years of experience is often not a sentence or two can be clear, from the beginning of the cork factory to the automotive field, to the later due to the insistence on the study of the rise and fall of the rotor engine, as well as the current well-known Chuangchi blue sky technology, compression engine, etc., Mazda's history can be described as magnificent, can also be told with wind and rain.
Today, Mazda once again stands at a turning point in the development of automobiles on the occasion of its centenary of its founding, although we do not know how it will choose, but this does not prevent us from wishing this "old man" a hundred years of happiness and expecting it to bring us more and better choices.