CarBrandLogos archive · Mazda · 1963
Four decades of small Hiroshima hatchbacks, retired in favour of a number.
Discover the storyPhoto: OSX · Public domain
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Mazda Familia, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
The Familia name covered Mazda's mainstream small car for four decades, starting in 1963 with a rear-wheel-drive compact and finishing in 2003 with a front-wheel-drive hatchback sold worldwide as the 323 or Protegé. The switch of driven wheels came in 1980, and that generation — the boxy front-drive 323 — was the car that established Mazda in Europe and won Japanese Car of the Year.
01-03 Mazda Protege LX · IFCAR · Public domain
02
Two things lift it above ordinary. The first is that in the late 1960s Mazda used it as a rotary testbed: the Familia Rotary Coupé put the twin-rotor engine into a small, light bodyshell and gave the company a cheap performance car years before the RX-7.
'90-'91 Mazda Protegé LX -- Rear · Bull-Doser · Public domain
03
The second is rallying. The BF and BG generations spawned the Familia GT-X and GT-R, turbocharged four-wheel-drive homologation specials built to contest Group A. They were never a match for the Lancias and Toyotas at the front, but the 323 4WD took World Rally Championship victories in Sweden and New Zealand at the end of the 1980s, and the road-going versions are now sought after.
1966 Mazda Familia SSA four-door sedan · Iwao from Tokyo, Japan;cropped and adjusted by uploader Mr.choppers · CC BY 2.0
04
When the name was retired, its replacement took Mazda's new numeric naming: the Mazda3, which has been the company's volume car ever since.
At a glance
Produced
1963–2003Technical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the Mazda Familia's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →From the journal
Contemporaries from the 1960s
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