No Mazda Centenary Birthday Bash But Bespoke Car Lineup Readied

Your 100th birthday is a very special celebration. Established in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. (yes, the firm made corks to start with) and welcoming its centenary this year, Mazda is celebrating the milestone in the biggest way they know how. But, unfortunately not the way they wanted to. The carmaker originally planned to make its big birthday splash by inviting thousands of media and Mazda fans from across the globe to its Hiroshima headquarters in late May, but the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to those plans.

So in stead, Mazda will launch a series of bespoke centenary-branded variants of its full passenger vehicle lineup and back those up with some specially developed centenary products. In an online media conference last week to press in Japan, product planners announced a series of vehicles that will wear a dedicated cream and burgundy color combination and unique centenary badging are the MX-5, CX-3, CX-5, CX-30, CX-8, Mazda2, Mazda3 and Mazda6. 

In addition to a bespoke 'snowflake white pearl mica' exterior paint offered across the entire range, all models will wear special "100 YEARS 1920-2020" badges and incorporate unique burgundy colored seats and trim. The MX-5, the world's biggest selling roadster with over 1 million sales, gets special attention by donning a unique 'dark cherry' colored soft-top. Other dedicated cabin features include bespoke floor mats, headrests, center wheel caps and key fobs.

Fans may ask why Mazda did not rehash its successful "soul red" body color for the centenary lineup, a strategy that was seriously considered according to one designer. Wanting to do something special, while paying homage to its vehicle history, Mazda stylists instead decided to center on the unique white and dark red two-tone color combination of the original R360 Coupe from 1960. While the bespoke MX-5 got the deep red roof like the R360, all other models were painted in white and accented with burgundy colored interiors.

While customers will be able to made-to-order special centenary-spec road-going vehicles online up until the end of March 2021, Mazda will also be offering a small selection of products to celebrate the brand's 100 years. These will include bespoke T-shirts, coffee mugs and miniature toy cars modeled on 40 of the brand's most popular cars from the last century. According to Mazda, several other products will also be offered to a globals audience but we just what form those goods will take is being kept under wraps. 

Fans will be able to purchase miniature versions of the brand's first-ever vehicle, the three-wheeled Mazda-Go truck from 1931, the firm's first passenger car from 1960, the R360 Coupe, the 1991 rotary-powered Le Mans winning 787B race car, the original rotary engined Cosmo Sport, the RX-7, the original MX-5, the Mazda2, CX-5, the latest Mazda3 and the award-winning RX Vision concept car among others.

However, Mazda's communications department says that while it will start rolling out the bespoke vehicle lineup and products in Japan this month, it has to take into account the export-import restrictions imposed by various Covid-19 pandemic realities in each of its markets before it can offer its global customer base the bespoke centenary lineup.