Mazda

The soft top and RF hard-top Mazda MX-5 are both a load of fun and reasonably priced fun sporty drive! Take your pick of 6-speed manual or automatic transmission too!

If you think about it, there's no practical reason to buy a 2026 Mazda MX-5 Miata. You feel cramped in a tight space. You get decent, but not great fuel economy. And the MX-5 only offers decent acceleration and roadholding. So what's the point? FUN! Let me show you.

Would you buy a compact pickup with rear-wheel drive, manual transmission, crank windows, two doors, tiny jump seats behind the buckets and a curb weight well below 3,000 pounds … if you could get it for about $25,000? The early-1990s version of that is what we have here, spotted a couple of years back in a Nevada car graveyard.

Mazda’s top dog, Masahiro Moro, has reportedly stated the company is seriously considering offering an electrified version of the next MX-5 Miata.

I happened to have the 2026 Mazda3 Sport GT Turbo and the 2026 Kia K4 GT-Line in the same week so I decided to stick them in the same video so here we are! They both even have red interiors. Come for a drive with me!

It gets better in every way for this new-gen Mazda CX-5. I cover the mid-trim GS or Select / Preferred and the top GT-Premium / Premium Plus in this video.

Our roads have become a parade of nondescript crossovers in drab paint jobs. But it wasn’t always like this and there’s evidence that something other than grayscale may soon be back on the menu.

It's been a minute since we snagged Mazda's "zoom zoom" machine for this feature -- but this 1997 Mazda Miata changes that.

Today we have a 1987 Mazda B2000 for you.

Some folks in the car community - perhaps rightly so - have a certain perception of Mazda. These are the folks who make the Miata. The folks who, God willing, always will. Everything else is in orbit of this Miata-centric theory of the Mazda universe. Another reality exists, though, and to continue to shoehorn this heliocentric analogy in, we’ll place the CX-5 at the center of the Mazda universe.

Mazda believes that customers won’t notice some of the cost cutting that’s taken place within the new CX-5. Some of us are less convinced and growing slightly concerned, however.

Mazda hasn’t sold a true rotary sports car in over a decade. But this has not prevented the Japanese brand from constantly teasing the prospect of there being a new one.

January typically brings in some bitterly cold days, and while that’s been true for the weather across parts of the country, new vehicle sales were just the opposite as Kia, Hyundai, and Toyota reported big jumps to kick off 2026.

We get a relatively rare one in this series today -- a 1989 Mazda MX-6 GT Turbo.

In a conference room in downtown Detroit, Mazda’s top North American safety executive played the short crash test video once, then twice for me, becoming more enthusiastic and emphatic each time.

Friend of TTAC Connie Peters reviews the 2026 Mazda MX-5 Miata and RF hardtop. That latter one might be of interest with winter coming.

We have a recall involving the 2025 Mazda CX-50, as well its hybrid version.

It seems clear that the Mazda Vision X-Compact previews a future Mazda crossover. But the Vision X-Coupe concept -- it's harder to tell.

Mazda has hauled the wraps off two concept cars, called the Vision X-Coupe Concept and Vision X-Compact Concept. Appearing at the Japan Mobility Show, they are a pair of studies which could point the company compass to a future design direction.

Mazda recently released pricing for its 2026 vehicle lineup, and the automaker has bucked the upward trend seen in most of the auto industry. Some models became cheaper, and most came close to their fairly reasonable prices from the year before.

The Mazda CX-70 debuted just a couple years ago as a two-row version of the CX-90, and it’s scheduled for a modest update as it heads into the 2026 model year. The SUV has a range of standard advanced driver-assistance features, an upscale interior, and new styling elements.

Toyota’s sports car partnership with Subaru might be coming to an end. The tie-up delivered the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GR86, but a recent report shows that Toyota may take its version of the car in a different direction.

Today we have a recall from Mazda, thanks to wonky instrumentation.

Hello! It's time for the TTAC podcast!

Mazda has revealed the next incarnation of the practical and fun-to-drive CX-5. The crossover grows larger for the 2026 model year and adopts some new technology. But Mazda has attempted to keep what has proven to be a winning recipe mostly the same.

Mazda in North America is recalling certain units of the Mazda3 and CX-30 from 2024-2025 model years over an airbag sensor.

Patent documents show that Mazda is working on an electric-vehicle setup -- and one of the drawings is suspiciously Miata-looking.

Rumors have been percolating that the next Mazda Miata might be an electric vehicle, or at least electrifed.

Miata is always the answer, until you’re actually trying to buy one, apparently. Mazda is reportedly holding MX-5 shipments at the port, delaying customer deliveries by weeks in some cases, but the cause is said to have nothing to do with tariffs.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) regularly updates its crash-testing standards, which often knocks some vehicles out of contention for a Top Safety Pick award, but Mazda put up a strong showing. The IIHS recently released its list of 2025 Top Safety picks, and the automaker has earned more awards than any other so far this year.

When the Australian government debuted its Motor Industry Development Plan in mid-1984, it believed the solution for the nation's automotive industry woes was at hand. Through streamlining and becoming more cost effective, the plan intended to cut the number of domestically produced vehicles in half, close down underutilized production facilities, and reduce import caps and tariffs on foreign vehicles. The plan also forced domestic Australian and Japanese automakers to work together to create badge engineered vehicles. Ford, Holden, Nissan, and Toyota were all victims of the plan as the manufacturers with the largest footprint on Australian soil. The very same year, Nissan and Holden were the first pairing to debut an exciting new badge engineered vehicle!

Picture it, 1984. The world is filled with Malaise era automobiles, neon colors, and a hot new TV show called Miami Vice just debuted on NBC. The Australian automotive market is in turmoil, suffering from inefficiency, oversupply, import restrictions, and tariffs of around 60 percent. What’s a government to do? Force every manufacturer’s hand, that’s what!

Mazda is apparently updating its logo.

Does it need to?

Mazda has apparently updated its logo for the first time in nearly three decades. However, the changes being made are the now-familiar minimalist approach taken by loads of other automakers in recent years.

Mazda announced plans to continue developing Wankel rotary engines for use as generators on upcoming electric vehicles last month and says it plans to stay the course. The automaker, which used high-revving rotary engines in its performance vehicles through 2008, remained committed to repurposing them as battery chargers. However, the last model it tried that on turned out to be a bit of a dud in terms of sales.

Today we bring you a 1991 Mazda B2600i. Small trucks for the win.

Sport, utility, and efficiency all seem like three qualities that, if blended together correctly, could result in a very desirable compact crossover.

The 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid gets those three things mostly right. Unfortunately, some negative qualities intrude on the experience.

Many have wondered which direction Mazda would take with future powertrain development, as the automaker has talked about rotary range-extending engines, plug-in hybrids, and more. We’re now starting to get a clearer picture of how Mazda’s propulsion systems may look going forward, as it recently snuck some significant news into its latest financial report.

The Mazda-Ford partnership brought us quite a few Familia-based cars during the 1990s, including the post-1990 Escort and 1991-1994 Mercury Capri. The chassis of the bigger Mazda Capella spawned some interesting US-market offspring as well, and we've got one of them for today's Junkyard Find.

Today we bring you a fun relic of 1990s corporate synergy -- this 1994 Mazda B2300 pickup truck.

Mazda recently released a pair of closely related SUVs in the two-row CX-70 and three-row CX-90. The latter will see a decent update for the 2025 model year that brings a new trim and updated styling elements, along with slightly higher prices across the line.

In a rare Uno Reverse moment, the crew at Mazda has reduced the price of entry for the generally excellent Mazda3.

Today we bring you a 1994 Mazda Miata with a turbo. And a lot more.

Japanese manufacturers are in the middle of a minor crisis after the nation’s transport ministry noticed irregularities in the certification process of several domestic models before launching a formal investigation. Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha Motor have all been faulted with submitting either incorrect or intentionally misleading information in regard to vehicle certifications.

Last week we brought you news that Fiat is bringing gas back -- and we also discussed Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru's decision to back off from full electrification.

Meanwhile, Nissan says it won't invest in any new gas engines.

What's going on?

Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru conducted a press event designed to explain why they’re walking away from full-blown electrification. While this is something numerous automakers have done in recent months, the “Multipathway Workshop” faced a predictable amount of criticism from EV acolytes.

For some reason, animals seem to love checking out large crossovers.

Last summer in upstate New York, a deer paused its day to check out the 2024 Volkswagen Atlas I was driving, nearly giving me a heart attack in the process. Last week in Desert Hot Springs, California, a wandering canine got my attention and forced me to stop as I piloted the 2025 Mazda CX-70. He or she checked out the CX-70 for about half a minute and then moved aside and started licking its fur.

Whether that’s a gesture of approval, disdain, or just a dog being a dog, I will let you decide.

Our regular programming will be a bit different over the next day or two, as I am in California to drive the 2025 Mazda CX-70 and the schedule doesn't leave me a lot of laptop time.

The Mazda CX-5 is aging compared to the rest of its fleet, but it remains a top seller for the brand. It’s still a surprisingly engaging and well-equipped compact SUV, however, and Motor1 recently found clues that it would be getting an overhaul with a hybrid upgrade.

Last week’s match-up between the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 was fairly close. However, readers seemed to gravitate toward the Toyota due to several factors. It boasted a traditional 8-speed automatic transmission, rather than a CVT, and made power from a larger motor that sidestepped forced induction. This led to many assuming the Toyota would handle long-term abuse better than the Honda — which was further supported by the vehicle having been on the market longer and proven itself as reliable.

As the point of this segment is to create the automotive equivalent of Sophie’s Choice, we’re bringing back the RAV4 and pitting it against the 2024 Mazda CX-5.

When we think about rear-wheel-drive Japanese luxury sedans of the early-to-middle 1990s, the Toyota Cressida, Lexus LS 400 and Infiniti Q45 come to mind immediately. Mazda was in that game as well, though, with the all-but-forgotten 929, and I've found one of those rare cars in a Colorado junkyard.