Mazda is one of the most familiar badges on Australian roads, but the company did not start out making cars at all. It began in Hiroshima as a maker of cork, built three-wheeled trucks before it built passenger cars, and set up its own sales company in Australia in 1967 1.
This refreshed history of Mazda in Australia follows the company from those beginnings to today, with the badges it has worn along the way. Where the original version of this article gave dates and claims we could not confirm, they have been corrected against Mazda's own records or cut.
From cork to three-wheeled trucks
Toyo Cork Kogyo was founded in Hiroshima on 30 January 1920 1. In September 1927 it changed its name to Toyo Kogyo, a sign that it had moved beyond cork 1. Its first vehicle, the Type-DA three-wheeled truck known as the Mazda-Go, followed in October 1931 1.
The name came with those first trucks 4. The company says it comes from Ahura Mazda, an ancient god of wisdom and harmony, and it also echoes the name of the founder, Jujiro Matsuda 4.
Three-wheelers remained the core of the business for decades. As late as June 1959 Mazda introduced the T600, a small three-wheeled truck with a 577 cc engine 1.
The first passenger cars and the rotary bet
Mazda's first two-door passenger car, the R360 Coupe, arrived in May 1960 1. A year later, in July 1961, the company began technical cooperation with NSU and Wankel on the rotary engine, the decision that would define the brand for a generation of enthusiasts 1.
The first rotary Mazda, the Cosmo Sport 110S, was introduced in May 1967 1. More followed quickly:
- the Familia Rotary Coupe, or R100, in July 1968, with a 10A two-rotor engine 1;
- full-scale exports of rotary cars from April 1969 1;
- exports of rotary cars to the United States from June 1970 1;
- one million rotary-engined vehicles built by November 1978 1.
Two of those early rotary cars stand out in Mazda's own record. The Luce Rotary Coupe of October 1969 is described by Mazda as the first front-engined, front-wheel-drive passenger car in Japan 1. The RX-4 of November 1972 was, by Mazda's account, the first car to meet the strict Japanese exhaust emission standards set for 1975 1. Both claims are the maker's, but they show how hard Mazda pushed an engine that most of the industry had given up on.
The rotary also gave Mazda its greatest racing result. In 1991 it became the first Japanese carmaker to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright, with the four-rotor 787B 4.
Where the history of Mazda in Australia begins
Mazda's own timeline records that in April 1967 the company established a sales company in Australia 1. That put Mazda on the ground here just as its first rotary car went on sale in Japan.
For much of the following decades, Mazda's story in Australia was tied to Ford. Ford took a 24.5 per cent stake in Mazda in 1979 and sold its remaining shares on 30 September 2015 4. In that time the two companies shared a lot. Mazda's B-Series light truck was also sold here as the Ford Courier 7. In Australia the Mazda 323 and 626 were always fully imported, while the related Ford Laser and Telstar were assembled locally 4. The second generation 323 was twinned with the Laser and shared much of its styling 6.
Mazda's working vehicles carried on alongside the cars. The B-Series one-tonner, the Bravo in later years, was replaced in 1999 by a Thai-built model that was only the third all-new version in two decades 7. Its successor line is the BT-50, and the current generation was unveiled in Australia in June 2020 4.
Small cars become the backbone
The small car line that Australians now know as the Mazda3 began as the Familia, introduced in Japan in January 1977 and sold in export markets as the 323 1. The first 323 sold here had rear-wheel drive, and the next generation switched to front-wheel drive 6.
In January 2004 the first Mazda3 replaced the 323 in Australia 5. It sold well from the start and was fourth in Australian sales in 2006 5. Wheels magazine recorded a 0 to 100 km/h time of 8.7 seconds for the Australian 2.0-litre model in its May 2004 issue 5, and a high-performance Mazda3 MPS was sold here until 2013 5. The third generation was revealed in Australia on 26 June 2013 5. By 2017, Marque Motoring reported that the Mazda3 was chosen by more Australians than any other car, while noting that the Toyota Corolla sometimes outsold it overall because of fleet sales 6.
Mazda itself was renamed Mazda Motor Corporation in May 1984 2. The Ford ties ran both ways that decade: in February 1986 Mazda introduced the Ford Festiva, its own Mazda 121 under a Ford badge 2. In 1989 it showed the MX-5, called the Miata in North America and the Eunos Roadster in Japan, at the Chicago Auto Show in February, and put the roadster into production that September 2. The MX-5 is still on sale more than three decades later.
How the Mazda badge changed
The original version of this post was mostly about the Mazda badge, and it is worth retelling with dates from Mazda's own history of its marks 3.
The early marks
- 1920: the letters T and C, for Toyo and Cork, arranged to look like the blade of a cork crusher 3.
- 1928: after the name change to Toyo Kogyo, the Japanese character for manufacturing inside a circle, which staff called the Maru-Ko mark 3.
- 1931: a mark on the Mazda-Go truck that combined the Mazda lettering with Mitsubishi's three diamonds 3.
- 1936: the emblem of wings, adopted when Mazda began selling its trucks directly. It combined three letter Ms with the river emblem of Hiroshima City 3.
Badges for the car era
In 1959, a year before its first passenger cars, Mazda replaced the wings with a stylised lower-case m used across all its products 3. In 1975 it established a corporate symbol as the core of its communications, part of a corporate identity system drawn up in 1974 3.
The badge most people would recognise took shape in the 1990s. A 1991 product emblem evoked the symbol of Ahura Mazda, using wings around a sun-like circle 3. Then, in 1997, Mazda established the brand symbol it still uses, a letter M shaped like soaring wings 3.
Recent refinements
Mazda redesigned the mark in 2015, giving it a metallic three-dimensional finish and a more refined blue 3. In 2018 the corporate mark became a wordmark with a matching metallic texture 3. In 2025 the brand symbol was made sleeker and bolder so it reads better on screens, and the wordmark was modernised 3.
A centenary, marked in Australia
Mazda turned 100 in 2020, and Australian buyers got their own version of the celebration 8. In April 2020 Mazda announced 100th Anniversary special editions of its Australian models, from the MX-5 sports car to the CX-9 seven-seat SUV 8. The special badging was to appear inside and out: on the front wings and the key fob, the wheel caps and headrests, and down to the floor mats 8.
The cars were cosmetic specials rather than new models, but they were a neat way to put the oldest mark in Mazda's history back on its newest cars.
Where Mazda stands with Australian buyers
Mazda remains one of the most bought brands in the country. In 2025 only Toyota and Ford sold more new vehicles here, and Mazda finished third with 91,923 sales 9. Its best seller was the CX-5 SUV, with 22,742 sales 9. Off the showroom floor the brand is visible in sport too: Mazda sponsors the North Melbourne Football Club 4.
The next chapter is about electrification. Mazda says it sees the years up to 2030 as the dawn of electrification, with an in-house battery electric car due in 2027 and its new Skyactiv-Z petrol engine paired with a Mazda-developed hybrid system in the next CX-5 by the end of 2027 10. We cover that engine in more detail in Mazda's plan to reinvent the petrol engine.
The rotary has not gone away either. Mazda reinstated a rotary engineering team, and the MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV uses an 830 cc rotary engine as a generator to charge its battery rather than to drive the wheels 11. Motor1 has also reported that a more powerful two-rotor setup is in the works, previewed by the Iconic SP concept car 11. More than half a century after the Cosmo Sport, the engine that made Mazda famous is still part of its plans.
Reading more about car history
If you like company histories, our team has also covered the history of Australian car manufacturing. The story of Ford in Australia overlaps with Mazda's for decades. Our Kia history in Australia tells of another brand tied for years to a larger partner. If an older Mazda is on your shopping list, browse cars for sale on Car Domain and read our buying safety tips before you hand over a deposit.
For the full official record of Mazda's marks, see Mazda's own history of marks and symbols, and its company timeline for the early years.
Sources
- Mazda Motor Corporation, Mazda history 1920 to 1979, accessed 2 November 2026
- Mazda Motor Corporation, Mazda history 1980 to 1989, accessed 2 November 2026
- Mazda Motor Corporation, History of Mazda marks and symbols, accessed 2 November 2026
- Wikipedia, Mazda, accessed 2 November 2026
- Wikipedia, Mazda3, accessed 2 November 2026
- Marque Motoring, Mazda's long Australian history, accessed 2 November 2026
- GoAuto, Mazda Bravo, accessed 2 November 2026
- GoAuto, Mazda announces 100th anniversary special editions, accessed 2 November 2026
- NRMA, New car sales 2025: Australia's best-selling vehicles revealed, accessed 2 November 2026
- Mazda Motor Corporation, Mazda Announces "Lean Asset Strategy" that Realizes Electrification of Multi-Solution, accessed 2 November 2026
- Motor1, Mazda's Skyactiv-Z Will Be 'The Ideal Internal Combustion Engine', accessed 2 November 2026
