Miata Mailing List: January 1999, Message #85

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I understand the thought process behind this, but understand
that Ford only owns about 1/3 of Mazda.  But that is enough
to control the company.  Mazda is still a freely-traded,
publicly-owned company.  Considering Mazda's sales the past
couple of years, Ford may actually be able to help keep them
alive and building the kinds of cars we love so well.

Ford has actually owned a piece of Mazda since the '70s when
they (Mazda) built the Ford Courier mini-truck.  Ford is
talking about some shared platforms, which may mean Mazda
will be building the smaller Fords (which would certainly
help them financially) and Ford may be building the larger
Mazdas, such as the Mazda pickup (which is already a
rebadged Ford Ranger) and perhaps Mazda minivans or SUVs.

It is possible that Ford will make suggestions to Mazda
concerning the Miata, but it's not a big piece of Mazda, so
I doubt they'll stay awake nights worring about how to
change it.  Even if they doubled Miata sales by making
changes, it wouldn't make or break Mazda.  They will
concentrate on increasing sales of the more mainstream
products like passenger cars.

Of course, it's just my opinion.

-- 
Richard Teasdale
'97 White PEP, "Spartacus"
Provo, Utah

The 1999 Miata Calendar is available!
http://www.xmission.com/~rjt/calendar

Visit the Utah Miata Club web site
http://www.utahmiata.home.ml.org
http://www.xmission.com/~rjt/miata


Slywolf 73 wrote:
> 
> I guess M1 owners will never trade their babies in for the 99's because
> Ford owns Mazda.  Are the M1's so perfect that the smallest problems in
> the M2's are magnified 100 times over?  The only "problem" I've had with
> my M2 is the mediocre top, which is down most of the time anyway.
> Although I'm starting to think that Miatas have been associated with
> pop-up lights that the pop-ups should have been redesigned instead of
> replaced.  But those almonds have a charm of their own.  Otherwise, who
> cares as long as I'm having fun driving?
> 
> Silver 99 in L.A.
> 
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