Like 2 Hybrid is now a Toyota Yaris
It is not the first time that Mazda has cloned a car from another brand and marketed it under its own name, as it is now doing with Toyota Yaris. Because that’s what a Mazda 2 Hybrid is. In 1996, the Ford Fiesta similarly received a Japanese twin.
Mazda is no stranger to cloning cars, but in the past it usually happened the other way around than it does now. The company’s own models were then the starting point for cars that were built under license elsewhere. For example, the Mazdas 1200 and 818 rolled off the production line in South Korea in the 1970s as Kia Brisa and a Mazda was also sometimes sold as a Suzuki or Nissan. Furthermore, the manufacturer was adept at marketing its own cars under different brand names and through associated dealers: Eunos, Autozam and ēfini each sought their own buyer group in addition to Mazda itself.
During the period when Ford was co-owner of Mazda (from 1974 to 2015), it was a ball anyway, with the 323 that was also for sale as the Ford Laser and the 626 that was also known as the Ford Telstar. The first 121 was even shared with several brands. The 121 shown here falls within this spectrum, which arrived in 1996 as the sleek replacement of the cheerful ‘Bolhoedje’.
In the absence of a good model of its own and in the absence of a European production facility, something that the other major Japanese brands did have at the time, Ford had to come to the rescue. The then new fourth-generation British-built Fiesta thus appeared in Mazda showrooms as 121, which differed from the Ford only in terms of trim. As a Mazda buyer you could do worse. At least, as long as the car had Ford’s impressive new 1.25 engine under the hood. This Zetec-SE, a sixteen-valve with two overhead camshafts, was a marvel of technology and also of zest for life; the four-cylinder turned at such a high speed and helped the compact hatchbacks to achieve performance that you would expect from engines with significantly more capacity.
Furthermore, the 121 was a good, but not very special car. Especially when you see it in your mind’s eye in the Mazda showroom of 1996, among the other models from that time. These were real attention grabbers, from the dynamic 323F and the streamlined 626 to the beautiful Xedos 6 and the sporty power of the MX-3, MX-5, MX-6 and of course RX-7. The 121 must have felt quite lonely, especially as half of twins.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl