It sure feels this morning like there was no way to design the electric Ferrari Luce that wouldn’t have made people mad. The company’s stock fell today in Milan as the online reaction was, if not universally negative, at least mostly grumpy. I think there was a way, though, and it’s if literally anyone else built it.
The Morning Dump doesn’t traffic in rumors, but the chatter overnight was that this design was an evolved version of the abandoned Apple Car. This rumor comes via the car design community and, as should be clear by now, car designers are all caustic, incurable gossips. I have my doubts about this, yet it does make me wonder if all this negativity would persist if any other brand in the world debuted the exact same car.
Branding is important! This is something Mazda is thinking about as it tries to reach for 500,000 annual sales. What is the Mazda brand? To that end, what is the Honda brand if it completely abandons electric cars? At least some of the original EV work might live on in the company’s hybrids.
Today seems to be about questions, and I schlepped down to the Council on Foreign Relations last week to watch a debate about the government owning shares in companies–a thing that really happened to the car industry–to see if anyone could convince me it’s a good idea.
The Ferrari Luce Is The Latest Victim Of Expectation
Like all good people of taste, I’m a big fan of the Ford 021C concept, penned by the same Marc Newsom who is partially responsible for the Ferrari Luce. While the two cars are approaching very different problems, there are aesthetic similarities and overlapping vibes. So why is it that I like the former and am bothered by the latter?
Ferrari is a luxury brand first, and carmaker second, so what a car represents is just as important as how it drives (which is probably great, since it’s a Ferrari). I shot a documentary about a prominent Ferrari owner and met a lot of other Ferrari collectors while doing work for the brand in a previous life, and I feel qualified to say that I’m not qualified to say what they’ll end up buying or liking.
I am only really capable of knowing what I like, and as a $64,000 Nissan I really like the Luce. As a $640,000 Ferrari it’s a lot harder to swallow a car that looks nothing like any other Ferrari.
The Bishop sent that to me last night, and there are versions of it all over social media with various badges. Honda. Tesla. Whatever. They all work. Now do the opposite and imagine a Nissan logo on an Amalfi. It doesn’t work, right?
What about the Apple Car? This new project is the first car from the mega design duo of iPhone designer Jony Ive and Marc Newsom. You can clearly see this in the interior, which I like, and think does a successful job of updating the Ferrari aesthetic for an EV future. While there may be some crossover with the planned Apple Car, I think most of the interior feels Italian GT in the best sort of way. The Apple Car was also reportedly supposed to be taller and more van-like, which this clearly isn’t.
Designers recycle. This is the way of the world. The guy who did the PT Cruiser went to GM and made the HHR. If someone didn’t buy Giugiaro’s design, he pretty much always peddled it somewhere else. The modern Genesis sedans and SUVs sure do look Bentley-ish, don’t they? I’m sure some ideas made it from the Apple Car to Ferrari.
The challenge is that the design is so blank slate that even the Ferrari touches are hard to separate from whatever else is going on here. This seems to be impacting the perception of the company, as Bloomberg notes:
The car looks like a “mix between a Honda Accord EV and Tesla 3,” Pierre-Olivier Essig, head of research at AIR Capital wrote in a note. “We are lost in translation with Ferrari’s new strategy.”
The launch also comes as demand for high-end electric vehicles has become harder to predict and some rivals like Lamborghini and Porsche AG have slowed their electrification plans, citing a lack of buying interest.
The share price plunge followed a presentation in Rome on Sunday that marked the final stage of a three-step reveal of the EV that began last year with the car’s core technology and later showed its interior.
The Milan-traded shares are at about 7.0% down as of writing this, while the company’s NYSE-traded shares are down about 3-4% this morning. It seems like other people are having a hard time understanding this, as well.
I think if you had Jony Ive and Marc Newsom unveiling this as a Honda people would have loved it.
What Is The Mazda Brand?
Larry Vellequette from Automotive News did a sit down with Mazda’s North American CEO Tom Donnelly, and a lot of talk was about branding. What is the Mazda brand? Is the idea of the Mazda brand in my head the same as the Mazda brand in your head? This is Donnelly’s concern:
What keeps me up at night is if you walked out of this hotel or this building and you asked 10 people, “What does Mazda stand for?” you’d get 10 different answers. That is my “keeps me up at night” thing. [At our meeting], we proceeded to try to lay out how we fix that, how we improve that situation so that we achieve the 500,000 sales, so that our dealers become more profitable, that we develop long-term, lasting, lifetime relationships with our customers. Just be a stronger, better brand.
The big thing that is at the heart of your question is that very thing: The products are the products, the people are the people, the dealers are the dealers. But if you don’t have a strong brand that people desire, you’re going to keep sliding backwards in this environment.
It’s tough. I’m a Mazda fan and have often steered people towards getting one. To me Mazda represents something that’s a little more distinct, a little better handling, and slightly more premium than what you can get from other Japanese automakers. That’s a bit diffuse, though, right?
I think the Mazda3 nicely fits in that, as does the Mazda CX-50. The new CX-5 is a bit more safety-forward and tech-forward. The CX-90 is a bit more luxury-forward. The Miata is like my Old Spice deodorant: Pure Sport.
How does one square all of that?
Honda Will Recycle Some Of The 0 Cars Into New Hybrids
People are upset we’re not getting the Honda 0 electric cars. I am not one of those people, although I recognize the wastefulness. That’s a lot of work, and I feel for the people who did that work. I also kind of like the 0 Saloon. It’s a bummer that won’t get made.
According to Hans Greimel, not all of it is going to waste:
Hybrids ”will be included across all models” with a few exceptions, such as the performance-oriented gasoline-powered Civic Type R, Managing Executive Officer Kazuhiro Takizawa said.
The hybrid focus provides political cover, offering electrification without full dependence on large-scale battery supply chains or charging infrastructure that could face policy headwinds.
Honda plans to introduce 15 hybrid models globally by fiscal 2029, separate from whatever emerges from the flexible next-generation EV-hybrid platform.
Some of the 15 upcoming hybrids will be updates to existing nameplates, while others will be new. Honda will also repurpose some of its next-generation 0 Series EV architectures and components in the upcoming gasoline-electric lineup, [CEO Toshihiro] Mibe said.
I wonder what that’ll look like.
Should The Government Own Shares In Private Companies?
I get invited to a lot of events, though this is the first time I’ve been invited to one at the Council on Foreign Relations, which is one of those think-tanks that either promotes an informed and much needed bipartisan view of America’s role in the world or upholds a deeply corporate, uncomfortably neoliberal status quote among policymakers depending on your own personal politics. I think of it as a place that was quite liberal with drinks and tacos.
Honestly, when I walked up to the gates it felt like maybe someone was playing a joke on me. The young man with the iPad greeting people didn’t have my name and I was just about ready to walk back out onto Park Avenue when a media person for CFR goes “Matt Hardigree?” and escorted me to the press section.
The reason I think I was invited was because the topic of the ongoing series “Open to Debate” was about government investment in private companies via shareholding. Obviously, governments pour huge amounts of money to corporations, albeit rarely by holding shares. The most obvious example of this happening was the government acquiring equity in both banks and automakers during the Global Financial Crisis in order to keep the economy from collapsing.
That was an emergency, and I think the government did a reasonable job of accomplishing the end goal of saving Chrysler and General Motors, albeit with mixed results for both automakers. GM was forced to cut brands somewhat randomly, and many of the valuable parts of Chrysler got sold off at what feels like unreasonably low amounts.
“Open to Debate” is actually a debate, and has two sides wrangled expertly by host John Donvan, which is refreshing. In this case, the pro-side was represented by a pair of longtime government insiders (Laura Taylor-Kale from the Biden admin and Richard Falkenrath from the second Bush Admin), and the con-side being former Fidelity President Bob Pozen and academic Yasheng Huan. It’s a little more CX than LD if you were a nerd like me in high school.
As you can see in the video above (or linked here), it was a good time. It was also an almost impossible job for the pro-side in light of the current White House, which seems extremely open to the idea of owning corporations. The pro-side tried to have the conversations outside of the bounds of whatever President Trump is doing, which is essentially impossible. It was like trying to debate the infield fly rule during a t-ball game–there are 13 infielders, the rules don’t matter!
I think Prof. Huan summed up the con-side quite clearly:
“Government, for better or worse, is a much more complex entity as compared to a company. VC has a very straightfowrard objective function, we may criticize it, but they are going in for profits and profits alone. Government cannot focus on just one objective function, they have to take care of many many other things. When you have such complex objective goals, it’s difficult to judge on a single metric. Once you have multiple metrics, you dilute the management.”
Either way, the pro-side got spanked. At one point, Taylor-Kale tried to make the point that Congressional oversight lags too late for key industries and that in certain areas, like AI, there needs to be a way for the government to get involved early enough to protect national interests. I’d buy that, but there seem to be plenty of other ways to do it that are not specifically ownership, which, as Pozen pointed out, means the government is going to pick winners and that “government bureaucrats do not have the skills necessary to pick economic winners.”
It’s a fun series and Prof. Huan had the best line in the post-debate wrap up about the direct back-and-forth when he joked “I’m used to being treated badly, I’m an academic.”
If they do one of these on the Chinese car industry maybe I can get invited to debate.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I was introduced to the idea of “Millennial Hopecore” as a musical sub-genre that takes a lot of the enveloping sound of stomp-clamp, but either in an electronic or indie rock-adjacent direction as opposed to something more rooted in folk and bluegrass. For instance, M83’s “Midnight City” is distinctly not stomp-clamp, but it’s also not purely indie either.
The Big Qusetion
What is Mazda’s brand to you?
Top photo: Apple/Ferrari
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: No, and frankly that isn’t even relevant. Brand and price matter, context exists. As a Ferrari this is lame and uninspired, yet it’ll still cost a million dollars for no good reason other than Ferrari happens to still have enough brand cache with enough rich fools.
If you were shocked (okay, not that shocked) by the depreciation a Porsche Taycan can manage, stand aside Germany, Italy has thrown its hat in the ring
Mazda is the poor man’s BMW of the ’90s. Adult Contemporary with thoughtful interior design. At least it was until the new CX5. I’m begging this Donnelly character to understand that he can’t compete with Toyota.
What is Mazda’s brand to you?
Cars for people who care.
They do this by making the sum of the parts relatively affordable, then refining the way they’re put together until it’s perfect: Seating position, suspension geometry and tuning, steering response, throttle calibration, transmission programming, I expect all of it to be satisfying when I get into a Mazda.
A good “true” Mazda does exactly what the driver demands, right when they expect it. There’s no adversarial program trying to guess what the driver really wants, filtering inputs to drive the way someone else deemed optimal, it simply trusts the driver to drive, and in turn the driver can trust the car to be driven.
I think the only way to really advertise this abstract quality is with halo cars, not necessarily Mazdaspeeds, but a manual Mazda3 Turbo that ships with Summer tires and competes with the GTI would do a lot for brand awareness.
Even if it loses every YouTube drag race, as long as it gets to be there, it’ll at least have a chance to be talked about on the same stage as other drivers’ cars. Nobody will know if it has the best steering feedback or throttle response or whatever unless they make a version that gets featured on the sort of media format where the presenter gives a damn about those qualities. From there, the CX-50 gets advertised as a bigger Mazda3, the CX-5 as a roomier CX-50, and so on.
I don’t know how they could effectively advertise the CX-90 within their identity, as a full-size performance SUV it’s a bit hard to take seriously without a smaller platform-mate. It’s a good vehicle in its segment, but it’s a total nothingburger for Mazda’s identity, it’s fast relative to its size and price, but it’s not in a size, price or speed range that gets featured in the sort of car media that people consume for fun, and no part of it is. At least in the case of vehicles like an X3 xDrive40i, the engine and platform are shared with the 3-series, a car that gets decent media coverage and popular awareness. It’s not on A crossover chassis with AN engine, it’s on THE 3-series chassis with THE B58.
As for the Luce, it looks like a really attractive competitor to the Kia EV6. I’d be very pleased if this was the design of a new entry-level Jaguar or a high-end Honda. If the driving experience is as premium as the interior finish, I could even justify selling this for the price of a Lucid Air, but I can’t even picture it as a Ferrari, it simply doesn’t compute.
If they made a Mazda6 based on the CX-90 platform I think it’d do good for the brand as a halo model, even if it was low volume.
I fully agree, even if it wasn’t winning any objective comparisons, as long as they could keep the promise of sound dynamics, it would prove that big Mazdas make sense. If performance was comparable to a Volvo or Lexus I think that’s all it takes to make something more fun than a BMW if the controls are properly Mazda-grade.
I don’t know if Volkswagen, or whichever parts of Stellantis the French and/or Italian governments own, are arguments “pro”, or “con”.
I actually like the Ferrari, the design is different and Ferrari has been doing some design experimentation in recent years where not everybody loves them, BUT the order books fill almost instantly.
My assumption of how this car happened. Apple spends billions designing a car that lives up to their standards and design. Apple looks at the cost to build a car to their standards and says we out. The design team asks if they can shop their stuff and Apple says sure nobody is going to buy a design that costs this much to build. Ferrari says our customers will pay for that. We get the Luce.
Mazda should be the mass market Lotus with emphasis on lighter weight and personality. I think a Honda Mazda merger would be a great thing. They are both doing similar enough stuff that combined they could be great. Honda does better engineering and Mazda does better design, combine them and you have something better than each alone.
Another Luce-id ramble! In addition to looking like a car from a totally different brand, from the available pictures it also suffers from crossover-like proportions: short & tall with a high belt line, almost creeping into ATS coupe high butt territory. If Porsche can pull off a sedan I’m sure Ferrari could too by stretching it lengthwise instead of upwards.
Should a government own shares in a company?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: I have three philosophical problems with it that are not specific to the current administration.
I’d argue a different case, whereby the Gov’t invests into a company/tech that isn’t directly financially motivated, but one that incurs indirect financial impacts.
Using environmental as an example: the general public directly carries the costs of poor pollution outcomes. Both in government needed cleanup, and poor health outcomes.
If the government would invest and support companies which would improve these outcomes, it would directly improve QOL, outcomes, and macro-level savings (ultimately borne by the public) that don’t necessarily have a clear ROI for traditional businesses. In this case, it wouldn’t need to be permanent investment.
Else: the gov’t could take an alternate approach and mandate regulations. But without viable solutions, this becomes the chicken-egg scenario.
But the distaste for government meddling (and middling) is heavily biased against low-ROI businesses and lack of long-term vision (add in 2/4y election cycles, and it just gets worse).
The Luce looks like something you’re supposed to swallow with a full glass of water or, worse, shove up your ass. It lacks character and personality. It doesn’t inspire love or hate, except as a Ferrari. It may be a fine car and will someday have a cult following, but it doesn’t make me want to spend Ferrari money.
Ferraris are like beautiful women who know it. High performance, high maintenance rides that draw eyes everywhere. They’ll break your heart and your checkbook and you’ll foolishly sacrifice anything to keep them around.
A Ferrari says you’re a winner, not a Lucer.
I was expecting the Luce to look more like a Karma with Ferrari styling language, and exactly like it does inside, cause the interior is great. Maybe The Bishop can cook something up?
As for Mazda, I heartily agree they are hurting on the brand identity thing. I regularly hear from my non-car people friends they are looking for a Toyota/Honda/Subaru, but never a Mazda. I of course remind them of Mazda but they never buy one. But the other three have built strong brand identities, even if they stretch the truth a bit in a lot of their advertising. As an enthusiast I of course loved Mazdas Zoom-Zoom era, but it was also their strongest brand identity ever. I think it was foolish to abandon it, even if they needed to update the tagline. Subaru has maintained their core brand identity (suburban ruggedness?) while also adding a reputation for safety and reliability (neither of which particularly deserved, in my opinion they are pretty average in both). This has given them differentiation from Toyota/Honda while Nissan has burned itself down, allowing Subaru to be the 3rd Japanese brand that always comes to people’s minds as a good buy. I think Mazda should have done similar in keeping the core brand identity fun to drive, while trying to add other desirable traits to people’s awareness (like reliability/luxury).
I don’t hate this Ferrari EV thing. I just don’t care about it in the slightest. Slapping an Apple badge on it wouldn’t change a thing. It is the antithesis of what I want in a car in basically every way. An even dumber than usual billionaire’s codpiece that will most get sold to those who want an real Ferrari and have to play the game to get one. And I am very much with Jay Leno in my opinion of THAT.
I’ve generally thought of Mazda as the Japanese VW over the years. Basic cars that are a little bit more fun/nicer than is typical for the segment. Plus the delight that is the Miata and the goofiness that is all the Wankel-engine’d cars. They made the only Japanese car I have ever bought with my own money – albeit one with an Italian accent (and much the better for it). Italians usually have style – though this Ferrari shows what happens when non-Italians style Italian cars.
I’m not super sure what Mazda is anymore, and I’ve been a big Mazda fan for years – I’ve owned a Protege 5 and two 3’s, and I convinced my ex-wife to buy a Mazda 6 V6 MT many years ago and my current wife to buy a CX-9 back in 2017. 10 years ago Mazda still seemed to be pushing the Zoom Zoom driving dynamics angle, since then they’ve gone into the pseudo luxury territory which I’m fine with, but given how well the paint and leather steering wheel on my wife’s CX-9 has held up, I don’t think they’re as premium as they think they are.
Now with the MAZDA logo lettering and lack of physical interior buttons on the new CX-5 I just feel like they’re chasing trends but are behind the curve. My wife has been considering a new car and the CX-50 hybrid is on her list, but the CX-5 has been nixed due to the interior controls.
Yeh the new CX-5 feels like it’s one product development cycle behind everybody else.
Agreed on the psuedo luxury materials. Their older more spartan but fun cars-I had a 2005 3S hatch for a while (and to go even further back an ’89 626 Turbo), and a couple friends and family members had Mazdas from their big early ’00s refresh era that held up quite well (including a 1st gen CX9). A friend who bought a 2015 (third generation) 3 because of me has loved the car but the interior is clearly not holding up as well as the old ’05 3 I had.
Mazda: Formerly part of Ford, with a dedicated fanbase. Uninteresting enough to not pay much attention to.
Mazda: a small company that does things a little different, I guess?
We bought our 1 and only Mazda (2010 Mazda5 Sport) because they offered something nobody else did, a minivan (albeit small) with a stick shift. It was enjoyable to drive and even handled well. Cheap too, around $16k. The rust was a big disappointment though. In retrospect I wish I undercoated it though I’d be swearing every time I worked on it.
I always thought the last gen Mazda 6 was a great looking car and was sad to see it go.
We’re considering a CX-50 Hybrid now because it’s better looking and slightly cheaper than a RAV-4. And hope it doesn’t rust out.
My son has eyes on a NC Miata that an elderly friend is ready to give up soon.
Would I be mad about the Ferrari Luce if it were the Apple car?
First I think it’s important to say – I’m not mad about it (and I was definitely mad at Jaguar when they did their EV reveal a while back). I just don’t think it looks like a Ferrari is supposed to look.
Ferrari (usually) makes cars that are beautiful in an exotic way that are as much lifestyle product as they are performance vehicle, and that’s missing here. They’re not all outlandish (the F550 and F575 are beautiful without the extreme looks of the Ferrari Enzo), but they’re almost always identifiable as a Ferrari even without a badge.
Similarly with the interior, I expect a Ferrari to wrap around the driver as a function – lots of things to hold onto, things within easy reach, and to have an exotic quality to it. This is a lovely interior for a mass-market, non-supercar vehicle. Are there great things about this interior? Yes! Is it a Ferrari caliber interior? No!
If this were an Apple car I would be pleasantly surprised and excited – because I expected an unoffensive blob from Apple. But this isn’t Apple, it’s Ferrari. Ferrari has different expectations, for better or for worse.
Lots of countries have shares in private companies.
Including America. All the time.
That’s not the debate. The debate needs to be how to do it well, in a way that actually benefits and protects the people.
But there’s an eternal monologue that says whatever is invested needs to make massive $ returns – but that’s not a long-play. And we’ve got a 4-year pendulum going.
How about investing in low-margin things like used car tire recycling companies? Nah.
How about protecting people’s information? Nah.
How about making it into a weapon?
The first car my wife and bought together was an old Mazda 626. It was a pretty boring sedan, but the power-sweeping vents was a fun quirk.
In the years since, I had an NB Miata and we have CX-90 now. Today, I’d say Mazda is a near-luxury brand punching above Infiniti and Acura in terms of quality and value.
One of my favorite Ferrari’s ever, the 412, didn’t look remotely like a Ferrari when it was launched. I’m not a huge fan of the design, but it’s a car only a minuscule elite of people can afford so get over it. Change is inevitable.. (and anyway you’ll get used to the design).
Just to be pedantic… the 412 looked a helluva lot like the 400i, which looked a helluva lot like the 400, which looked a helluva lot like the 365 GT4 2+2.
So it looked like three Ferraris that came before it.
More seriously, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see a bit of Daytona and/or 365 GTC/4 in it. Sure, it’s more angular and squared off, but it’s not that far. Especially when you consider what other Ferraris came out in ’73 (Dino 308 GT4 and the Berlinetta Boxer) that were just as angular and square as the 412.
“Now do the opposite and imagine a Nissan logo on an Amalfi. It doesn’t work, right?”
Sure it does. It could even have been a Z.
TBQ: My DD.
IMO,
Ferrari should have taken the Porsche approach to their first foray outside of 2 doors (and with electrification) and made their version of a Cayenne.
Sure, we eventually got the Panamera, but Porsche knew that moving from sports car to mass market NEEDED to be a different identity. What’s a better combo than your track car getting towed by something from the same brand?
If they wanted to go smaller, a 100-150k 4-seater go-kart of a car may have landed better than this nearly 3/4 mil identity crisis.
TBQ
I’ve always saw Mazda’s identity as “Product segment [X] for people that enjoy driving” As in, for the given vehicle market it’s in, it’ll give one of the best driving experiences for the segment and price bracket.
Or maybe I just bought into the “Zoom Zoom” marketing campaign too heavily through the 2000s.
I mean to be fair to Ferrari, they sort of did take the Cayenne adjacent path with the Purosangue. Sure it’s not off-road capable like the 1st gen Cayenne was, but luxury SUVs that aren’t BOF (G-Wagon) have all abandoned off-road pretenses. It was the Ferrari of 4-door crossovers with a big NA V12, crazy suspension tech and coach doors for flair.
I think Ferrari’s larger problem is that the EV doesn’t translate as nicely into an existing brands philosophy, and Ferrari has always been in large part about it’s powertrains and being cutting edge. The Luce does nothing that novel compared to every other 1k hp EV, and due to the needs of aero efficiency, absolutely loses the brand identity in the process. At least the Purosangue is instantly recognizable as a Ferrari in both visuals and powertrain. I have no clue why they felt the need to even release the Luce given the limited market for ultra-high end EVs barely exists and is anathema to Ferrari as a brand.
The Purosangue is still very “CAR”. What they need is “Not CAR”.
It needs to be a complete departure of design language. Porsche basically marries the Cayenne by headlight shape. Everything else is a departure from their normal exterior design language when we look back at the 1st gen.
First and foremost, a Ferrari must look like a Ferrari. It needs to grab the attention of anyone seeing it, whether they’re a car person or not. That’s more important than how it performs, how much it costs, etc. You have to look at one and immediately fantasize about how great your life would be if you could drive around in it. At some deep, lizard-brain level, there’s sex involved. The Luce is bulky, ungainly, completely non-sexy, and it looks like an electric car first and a Ferrari second or third or…..not at all. Other companies could easily get away with this. Not Ferrari.
(And apologies if this has already all been said 100 times, but I haven’t read the other Luce-related comments.)
No apology needed for the excellent summary of Luce comments.
“What is Mazda’s brand to you?”
Um, less Snooze Snooze?
FINALLY! I can get a Ferrari with shiny black plastic cladding. What took them so long?
I’ve owned a bunch of Mazdas, but never a Miata or rotary powered one, so in my head they aren’t tied as closely to those two as some others may see them.
Basically my experience with them has been regular-ass commuter or family cars that do the job nearly as reliably as a Toyota or Honda but have just a bit more fun baked in. Whether that’s slightly nicer styling, a manual option, or slightly better handling they’re basically just a Honda or Toyota that puts a bigger smile on my face.
One example is I had a 2006 Mazda3 with the basic 2.0 liter NA 4-cyl and an auto, but it had the little nod to enthusiasts in that the “manual” shifting was oriented correctly: pull for upshift, push for downshift. My Mazda5 is the same way. Non-enthusiasts didn’t “get it” because to them it seemed like “up” should be + and “down” be -, but having driven manuals my whole life it was much more intuitive the way Mazda does it.
Lately they’ve leaned more toward the “premium” segment, which I get since being the “slightly sportier Honda” is a tough sell, but that doesn’t appeal to me quite as much. I just want basic cars with a bit of Zoom Zoom.
I agree, as a former owner of a 2005 3S (sadly also an auto) that car punched way above its class in terms of performance but also just felt a little more cohesively and stylishly designed than most Toyota or Honda products. RE: the shifter not sure the average driver really cares, so why not please enthusiasts, my wife just realized yesterday that the Subaru she’s been driving for the last two years has shift paddles behind the steering wheel after accidentally hitting one and thinking she’d done something wrong lol and she’s a pretty good conscience driver imo just not an enthusiast.
I’m tempted to think the average person probably appreciates the move towards budget lux more than performance but also can say anecdotally that I sold my 3 to my in-laws and they are the most non-car buyer Consumer Reports adhering people you ever met and they even liked the extra sizzle the 3 offered vs the Honda Fit they were used to. They liked the 3 enough they drove a CX5 and CX50 when they went to buy a new car to replace one of the old ones.
To me, Mazda seems to be about making a more driver oriented or enthusiast driving experience, but that’s probably just their advertising approach. I don’t know Mazda driving experience outside of our NC and ND Miatae, but if their other cars are as good as the Miata, I should really look at their stuff the next time I’m car shopping. The fact that I can just jump in a 20 year old Miata and drive it like it’s a new car and everything still works says something to me. Even our ND is 10 years old and gives us no troubles. And they are both a joy to drive.
They are, at least the smallish ones (3 and CX-30). And the manuals are delicious.
Not sure about their biggest offerings though.
Up until recently they injected some real sport into their non-Miata car offerings-I’ve owned a 2005 3, driven friend’s and family member’s older CX-5, CX-9 and 6; and they had a real sense of sportiness and driver engagement that their competitors generally don’t offer, as well as similar to your Miata fairly rational and straight forward interior and control designs that still offer a sense of style. I haven’t driven a newer CX9 but did test drive the newer CX-30 and CX-5 when we were car shopping for my wife and they’re good but they’ve definitely subdued the sport some vs their older cars which really felt like budget BMWs. They seem to be trying to be more of a poor man’s audi or volvo now…
With one notable exception, everyone I’ve known with a 2000s onward Mazda has found them quite reliable and very reasonable to maintain. My good friend has put almost 200K on the ’12 Mazda6 he bought off lease in 2014 and it has only in the last year started requiring anything beyond basic maintenance.
“if literally anyone else built it”
I’ve been espousing this about the Black Album since 1991.
Yes I just wrote below but this deserves its own comment.
If you want to see just how dogmatic Jony Ive must have been during the design…look at the permanently exposed windshield reverse windshield wipers framing the windscreen.
It’s the EXACT same problem that the Cybertruck had, another vehicle that was dogmatically designed to the point that the windshield wiper is the size of small tree and has no spot to fold into either.
I mean this is a guy who famously oversaw a mouse design that had a charging port that meant you couldn’t use it plugged in or while charging.