Here in southeastern Massachusetts, it’s quite rare to see a pre-1990s compact sedan on the roads that isn’t a Honda or Toyota. That’s why, as this very nondescript, salt-covered car came into view on my horizon, I sped up a bit to get a better look, for I knew I was about to see something out of the ordinary.
At first I thought it might be a unicorn AMC Alliance, but as I caught a glimpse of the round rear wheel wells, I knew it wasn’t so. Now pulling up along side it, I realized it was a late-1980s Mazda 323; another car I haven’t seen in sedan form here in probably over a decade. Squinting to decipher its unusual license plate, I also realized this car is from Montana, some 2,000 miles from MA-Route 3. Guess it explains why I haven’t seen this car before, but also reveals that this car is probably in somewhat decent mechanical condition if it can make the 4,000+ mile round trip.
I had one of these! Didn’t own it very long but it was a good, humble, basic car that never let me down. It’s probably why there’s a Mazda6 in my driveway now.
Actually, the more I think about it, I’ve never heard anyone say “I wish I wouldn’t have bought that Mazda.”
It’s funny, for all the positive press regarding its design, features, and fun-to-drive qualities, I wasn’t a big fan of the current Mazda6 until I delivered a CPO 2015 Grand Touring to a couple last month. And this is just from driving it around the parking lot, but I was very impressed!
Attractive exterior and interior styling, high-quality interior, laden with tech and safety features, and a peppy I4! If I were in the market for a new midsize sedan, the Mazda6 is in my top 3 considerations.
It irks me to no end that the wagon version isn’t offered here. Love the current 6 otherwise.
The wagon version is the standard company station wagon (in Skyactiv diesel form) for my current employers; the reps love them. The wheelbase is rather shorter than the slinky sedan, so they look a tad stubby, but if I was in the market for a mid-size wagon it’d be near top of my list.
I am always amazed to see a really old compact a long way from home. Is the car really that well maintained? Or is the owner just incredibly and blissfully ignorant (and lucky)? Also, I am reaching the age where long distance travel in a car of that sort is simply not an appealing idea, so I have a little admiration for these folks too.
I hope the little Mazda doesn’t spend too much time in the salty northeast, or else it will quickly start to rust away just like all the rest that used to live there.
My buddy had the “swoopy” Mercury Tracer version of this car back in the 80’s…he liked it a lot, it seemed pretty nice (I thought the seats were a bit stiff, but otherwise a nice car). I remember he made a lot of money in some investment (likely in Asia..) around this time and I’m guessing he paid cash for it
(even though it was probabaly less than $10K that seemed like a lot of money at the time)
That the car had out-of-state plates got me thinking along the same lines…I live in the sunbelt, like a lot of displaced former northerners (though I’ve been here going on 34 years now)…we see occasional rusty cars, though some cars from the gulf coast states also rust, they tend to rust different places (a lot of times around the roof, not so much the wheels or rocker panels….but the general migration pattern of people has tended to be from northern states to southern states. If you saw a pretty old car up north, do you tend to think that the owner was careful with it (versus that it originally was from a southern state)? I guess there are likely to be other clues, like faded interior fabric or bad rubber weatherstripping that could indicate the car was from the south, but I guess you could also have this situation where the car was from another northern state but wasn’t subjected to road salt so much.
Maybe someone could combine the good “soft” parts of a “bad” northern car (seats, door fabric, etc) with the good “hard” parts of a “bad” southern car (probably pretty much everything else, I guess including any carpeting on the floor) to make a “good” but old car (plus the “bad” but old shell, along with bad interior, etc, that I guess would just get scrapped)..if the car is worth a bit, probably is already being done….to justify the labor and the difficulty finding 2 similar cars with compatible parts.
You’d have to really love the car to take on a job like that. These were good cars, but does anyone love one enough to take that on? They’re in that trough of desirability between “good used car” and “Wow, that’s an oldie!” I fear that we’re the only ones who notice cars when they’re at this stage.
Makes me wonder if it had a pampered life from it’s original owner for many years, and then inherited or sold because the owner no longer driving. If that’s the case, in salt country this car won’t be long for this world.
Agree on the new Mazda6 being an under rated car. We had a 180k mile ’04 1st generation example, and it was a really nice looking and driving car. The strong running 2.3 160 HP 4 cylinder engine was using quite a bit of oil at this mileage, but everything on the car it was still working well.
Wow. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those in person. It has been a minute, Brendan.
(I have been to that T stop at Braintree…about 20 years ago when my brother lived in Cambridge. Tore it up a few times at Man Ray – I’ll have to see if that place is still even open. Great days…)
Yeah I grew up in neighboring Milton, and now I live and work a little further down the South Shore. Taken the red line many a times to the end in Braintree, and the commuter rail which I took every day into Boston for college and work last year passes through the Braintree station. I guarantee the station and crumbling parking garage has not changed in the 20 years since you were there haha.
Heh. I grew up in Norwell and commuted up Route 3 to Thayer Academy and back down to home for years – it was hellish. More to the point, I had a girlfriend in Brockton who drove the swoopy Mercury Tracer version – pretty decent car.
Surprisingly, this little Mazda how outlived Man Ray. The club is long gone.
These were pretty advanced for the day. The Mazda 1.6 had FI a few years before the Civic and Corolla 4 door and was one of the first import subcompact to offer power windows/locks/cruise control a few years before the features became widespread in this size car.
My next-door neighbor in my teenage years had one of these. Nice little cars, but small for my tastes. My grandfather had one of the next generation (renamed Protege, but still part of the same line) and that car was actually quite nice in all respects.
Unfortunately Mazdas are more prone to corrosion than most cars….Living in Buffalo I’ve seen 10 year old Mazda 3’s with pretty advanced corrosion. Proteges were even worse, especially around thge rear fenders….Coated in salt I’m surprised this one is still around.
I can actually see it rusting between pics!
Impressive find and wonder what it is doing in New England?
Ithaca, NY is a college town so I would see several old cars from way out of state including a circa 1988 Accord Hatchback from California that I watched rust while the owner went to school.
In Portland, OR I have seen a Fairmont from ME, a 1988 Nova from IL, a late 1970s F-Series from NH, a Cirrus from OH, a MasterAce from IN, and circa 1980 Chevy Pickups from far flung places on the East Coast.
http://www.vitalground.org/how-you-can-help/special-campaigns-funds/montana-license-plate-program/
Here is some information on that hard to read license plate.
Good Lord, but Montana has got to have the most special-issue license plates per capita, by a huge margin. Had never seen this one before, must be a vanity with very few characters because all I can make out is the bear outline.
That van’s bumper stickers look pretty Portlandian. Maybe still registered in Indiana to avoid some local inspection? Here in California it’s the law to register vehicles locally in some very short time, even for students, and if I see something around for a while with out-of-state plates I always suspect it’s because it won’t pass the mandatory smog inspection.
What if the car’s still owned by someone out-of-state but just loaned to a local? I’ve been doing that with my old Suzuki Swift for the last five years.
Good point, but those stickers on the bumper would probably apply to Indiana what with farming, etc.
When I was in Los Angeles I saw a Cloud Car from Arizona that spewed a Blue Cloud of smoke, but I suspect there was nothing that could be done. I do not like that residency requirement and glad I could avoid it while there.
Those regulations are only an issue if you get caught. Virginia has the same sort of thing (I think you have 30 days) but if you don’t get pulled over, it’s not a big deal. It took me almost a year to move the registration of our Kia from NC to VA after moving (would have been about 2 months shorter if the process for moving the title of a leased car was not a form of torture.)
As long as you change the registration and the driver’s license at the same time, you have plausible deniability even if you do get pulled over. If you tell the officer you just moved here, it’s not like he’s going to follow you home and look at your mortgage/lease papers!
This generation is starting to get quite rare. This one is still around, but I haven’t seen a sedan in a while. These were exceptionally good cars in their day; as good as it got in its class.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1981-mazda-glc323-truly-the-greatest-little-car-of-its-time/
MAZDA GLC – the “Great Little Car!!”
Mazdas of this vintage and all of the true Mazdas (not the Ford-influenced ones) were great cars. Somehow along the way Mazda fell by the wayside to the likes of Honda and Toyota. I think when it merged a lot of its products with Ford, it definitely damaged its stellar reputation. I know for a fact from working at a Mazda dealer for several years that the 626 of the 90’s and 2000’s suffered a lot of premature failures which led to unhappy customers. The fit and finish slipped and the overall quality was always a step behind Honda and Toyota. It is a shame, because Mazda can build a great, reliable car when it is solely Mazda based.
Ford has had a stake in Mazda since the 60’s. The stake grew larger over the years till it reached 33%. So at what point would you say the cars are true Mazdas vs. the Ford influenced Mazdas?
It is well known that the Mazda automatic transmission from 92 onward was more Ford than Mazda and is responsible for the poor overall reliability of the automatic 626. Best to stay with the manual in those years.
Nice find, haven’t seen one of these in several years.
These used to be everywhere back in the 80s and 90s but few left now. My Uncle still has the 1986 323 GT sedan he bought in 1992. It’s a JDM model so is Familia badged instead of 323, and is a factory turbo with manual transmission. It was off the road for a decade after cracking the head in the 2000s. My cousin fitted a replacement head a couple years ago, the car started fine and is running happily again. I’ve driven it and it’s a great little car. His has conventional instrument gauges, but I remember some JDM models having weird digital instruments, the graphic of which resembled snail shells.
I’m still driving a 89 Ford Laser sedan and we have a pair of Famillia hatchbacks though neither of them are on the road anymore.