Mazda Xedos

[Erdosfreak]

It's time to settle this once and for all. I want to know what is really that bad about the Mazda Xedos 6 0f 1993/4.

I admit the colours were bright and not manly (which is so important to people on this forum.

But Watts got a pole posistion with it and a load of 4th places. Looking at Knockhill in that year i noticed that he braked really early for the hairpin which is why he lost the lead.
1994 the car was awful but they had no money.

[kmchow]

I think Mazda's situation was a bit like Peugeots in '01? The '93 car showed promise by the end of season, but money dried up for '94. They had a car that had potential, but they lacked the funds to continue development? OTOH, Mazda was in a bit of a financial trouble during the '90s so I guess they had to cut back costs? I twould have been interesting too see how the car progressed if they had more money.

Ditto for the Toyota and their Carina?

[supertouring]

I thought it looked the best car out there, from an asthetic(?) point of view.

Compare it to the "Brick on wheels" Volvo 850! Now that would have been interesting to see them race together.

Wings and splitters would have spoilt the lines of the car, so just as well they pulled out.

[kmchow]

True, the Mazda Xedos didn't look bad. OTOH, I've never met a ST car I didn't like! I may not love it, but I wouldn't hate a ST car! Darn stubborn and biased huh??

[KA]

I don't think there was ever anything fundamentally wrong with the Xedos as a tourer- certainly I remember it looking like it had a lot of promise in it's first season, it was pretty competitive at times.

The problem was that the Mazda effort was always run on a very small budget by a small team- if you look at the descriptions of the Mazda team in the Touring Car Year yearbooks for 1993/4, Roger Dowson's team only had something like 3 full-time crew in 1993 and 7 in 1994 (to run 2 cars!!)- presumably they hired in extra mechanics for race weekends....

They simply never had the resources to develop the car's potential

[kmchow]

Wow, 3 or 7 full time crew really doesn't seem like a lot! I definitely don't look down on them. I've always heard the Mazda project was really run on a low budget. Kinda like the Hyundai Lantra project in Australia. It's really too bad they never fully had the chance to compete.

[Jimeth]

Kudos to them for trying tho, at least they weren't always dead last as well

[Vatanen]

Originally posted by Jimeth
Kudos

It was pronounced Ker-cedos actually.

[kmchow]

Speaking of unrealized potential? How did the VW Ventos or Seat Toledos(??) do?