The demise of my 1983 Nissan Stanza and the reality of a 45 minute one way daily commute from Ann Arbor to Detroit necessitated the purchase of a replacement vehicle – a “brilliant black” 1993 Mazda Protege DX (the pic above is the right color, but not the specific car). This was the first car my wife and I owned together and it holds a special place in our collective hearts as the car that marks the early years of our relationship together. It also was the first manual transmission car I had ever owned and, despite the learning curve, sold me on the merits of the stick shift.
This was my first Mazda and we were encouraged by the experience of friends who owned similar models. The Protege was part of a lineage of Mazda small cars going back to the late 70’s Mazda GLC (Great Little Car), the Mazda 323 and continuing through to the Mazda 3 of today. By and large, Mazda was known for making solid, sporty cars that held their own against competition from other Japanese car makers. Also, as Mazda had been pulled financially into the orbit of the Ford Motor Company by the late 80’s/early 90’s, this specific generation of Proteges also provided the underpinnings for the Ford Escort/Mercury Tracer duo, vastly improving on earlier generations of those models.
The Protege model we bought in early 1995 had about 30,000 miles after about 18 months of use. Clearly, the car had been used mostly for highway driving – there was little wear in the interior and the exterior had no dings or dents. It was a trade in at a local car dealer of a different make and they were interested in moving it. (It was winter in Michigan and cars weren’t flying out of the door.) It was a basic DX model – manual windows, manual locks, and the most annoying automatic shoulder belt system I’d ever seen. In lieu of an air bag, Mazda opted to comply with federal front seat passive restraint mandates with a motorized shoulder belt track that, theoretically, allowed you to leave the shoulder belt buckled while it moved out of the way when the door opened. Anyone who has ever lived with these motorized menaces knows what they were – a gimmick. The lap belt still needed to be engaged manually. And if any dirt or grime got on the track, the motorized mechanism would start running back and forth. There was no way to turn it off and, most times, we let it run unbuckled and, instead, did the two step process of buckling the shoulder and lap belts separately.
The belt system was about the only poorly designed thing in the car. For me, a selling point was the stick shift. I had always wanted to drive a car with a manual transmission, but had not had the opportunity. Once the Stanza met its demise, I was determined to learn. A friend of mine took me out in his late 80’s Civic and we practiced in a school parking lot. Even though I had already been driving over 10 years, it took awhile. I’m glad smartphones with cameras didn’t exist at the time – the stalling, shaking and gyrating would have made for an embarrassing social media post. (Ah, those were the days!) After several lessons, I was ready to test drive the Protege and was amazed at the smooth and ease of the stick shift. The clutch and shifter worked well with the fuel injected SOHC 1.8 liter four cylinder. It was peppy and easy to rev, and the shifts were crisp and linear. The perfect car in which to perfect my shifting skills. Luckily, my wife already knew how to drive with a manual so she took to the car easily.
The Protege was probably one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. It was relatively roomy, given the compact footprint. The mileage was terrific – easily mid/upper 30’s on the highway (sometimes 40). Plenty of power to merge on the highway. The transition to daily driving a car with fuel injection was eye-opening. Quick handling and decent, if somewhat choppy ride, despite the relatively skinny 13 inch tires. The back seats dropped down in a 60/40 split and we were able to use the open space for camping equipment or skis. The car was dead on reliable. Over 5+ years, I don’t remember needing anything more than tires, brakes and a new muffler. (Michigan salt had corroded the exhaust system after a few years.)
Over the years, we drove the Protege all over Michigan, to visit family in Wisconsin and on the East Coast, and to eventually move to upstate New York in 1998. The Protege handled the lake effect snows of Syracuse and we learned that a front wheel drive car with a stick shift could better handle hills than a lot of SUVs. (We never got winter tires, but the car still made it through frequent snowfalls with the regular all seasons we had bought in Michigan.) The key seemed to be the transmission – I learned how to hold the car in a lower gear when necessary, or shift up to a higher gear when needed to reduce wheel spin and get unstuck. It was a homegrown version of the more modern traction control systems that started to become more widely available in the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
After the birth of our first son, however, we realized we needed something a little bigger. (See my COAL regarding the VW Passat we bought to replace it.) Also, by 2000, the Protege seemed to be lacking some of the more modern safety features I wanted to have to protect my family – front and side air bags, antilock brakes, traction control, etc. We sold it to a local guy who needed a commuter car when the time came and I felt a bit wistful. The Protege was, to quote an earlier Mazda model, a “great little car”. Not the most refined, but certainly an eager, willing, easy to live with car. To this day, I think of the many roadtrips my wife and I took in the Protege – a stack of mixed tapes in the little cubby in the small center console. Life was simpler in some ways then – just the two of us (and then the two of us with baby).
Our experience with the Protege also set us up as fans of Mazda vehicles. Six years after selling the car, we bought our first (and only) minivan (the MPV). And 18 years later, we bought our first crossover (a 2016 CX-5 – more on that for a future COAL). At least for us, the combination of Japanese design and quality combined with an extra dose of sportiness has been appealing.
I don’t see many Proteges of the early 90’s vintage any more in Minnesota. One failing of Mazdas of that era was rust-proofing. While we didn’t have a lot of rust issues on the body, our Protege certainly showed wear in the underbody. I suspect most Proteges from that era have long since rusted out. But, if I did see one, I might be tempted to have one for quick runs around town – just for old times’ sake. With a stick shift, please.
God I forgot about the motorized belts, what a menace. My Chevrolet Beretta had a different setup, that was a little bit better. Both the lap and shoulder belt mounted to the door, and the “passive” part was that it’s possible to leave the belt buckled, and still open the door and exit. Obviously, a bit of a tangling trap, and pushing a rather large coupe door open again the tension of the belts is no fun either.
Those weren’t better, they were markedly worse. For one thing, as you say, they aren’t passive restraints—not really. They’re just regular 3-point belts, only in the door so they can be left buckled while the door is open. Perhaps maybe 0.08% of people did that. They were unbuckled in the showrooms (a violation of Federal law), and mostly people unbuckled them every time they left the car—despite the very important urgent warning never ever to unbuckle the belt except in an emergency (it was somewhere or other in the owner’s manual nobody ever read). This was another craven, cynical GM compliance job, but GM did have a way of getting what they wanted, regulatorily speaking, whether or not it was in accord with the letter or spirit of whatever reg was in question.
It’s scarcely conceivable (oh, wait, that’s not true: some Ferengi ghoul on the 14th Floor™ said “do it or you’ll be replaced”) how any legitimate engineer could possibly sleep at night after designing or approving the GM door-mounted belts—but then we’re talking about the company which for decades installed seatbelts with RCF-67 buckles that unfasten all by themselves.
My second-ever foray into the traffic safety realm was in high school; I wrote about passive and door-mounted seatbelts for a CP Writing “current public issue” research-and-report assignment. I still remember two of the money quotes I dug up. One was from someone at NHTSA: “We decided we were willing to degrade the protection, possibly degrade the protection, to get more people using belts”.
The other was a staggeringly unreal statement from someone at GM, in response to (valid) criticism that door-mounted belts mean zero protection when the door flies open in a crash: “[The door mounted belt system] provides excellent occupant protection. We don’t think doors really tend to open very often in crashes”. Perhaps he had crossies when he said it, or maybe it was Opposite Day, because that’s not how it was here in this universe.
I bought a 1989 Honda Civic. For 1990-91 Honda used these door mounted belts in the Civic and CRX too.
A secretary and her husband owned one of these and it was a good car for them. The problem came when someone hit it and exposed prior crash damage, which opened a two-front fight with the dealer who sold it used (and claimed they had no idea of prior damage) and the insurer (who claimed they did not owe to fix it due to the prior damage). So this is now my association on the increasingly rare occasions when I see one of these.
I love a stick shift in a small car, and still wish I could have sold Mrs. JPC on a 5 speed in the Fit when we were ordering it. But she said that she paid her stick shift dues growing up with VWs and was ready to move on. So automatic it was.
I owned a 1991 one of the first generation cars
We put 70,000 trouble free Km on it
I looked everywhere for the sporty model with sunroof and ac but no one would sell be theirs so I bought an automatic DX
These cars were well loved and not often for resale in my area
Very comfortable seats
Very quick and had go kart like nimble handling 😎
Fantastic gas mileage
Amazing in the snow
Sold it at 100,000 km which was a mistake
I wish I still owned it
These were really Great Little Cars — I loved my 323, and in the 1990s the Protege was by far my favorite small sedan (though I found the beehive-shaped 323 hatchback to be hideous). I knew several people who owned Proteges, and everyone had a good experience with them, and they were much cheaper than equivalent Civics.
A coworker of mine still has a later (late 90s) Protege 5-spd., and I’ve ridden in it occasionally. It’s amazing how different it feels from any modern car — snug, airy, etc… it many ways I prefer the feel of his Protege to its modern successors.
The Protege was on my short list when I was shopping in late ’96. A coworker had this generation and I really liked it, but by ’96 the Protege was on to the next generation and I wasn’t in love with the styling. I did test drive a DX with a 5 speed and liked it, but the Nissan dealer came back with a better offer on a Sentra GXE with power windows and locks and (most importantly) cruise control, so I pulled the trigger there instead.
And yes, living in snow country I refused to drive a car with an automatic transmission. I learned to drive on a stick shift, and to this day I’m a firm believer that nothing short of all-wheel drive is better in the snow than a manually shifted front-wheel-drive vehicle with narrow grippy tires.
I too looked at this one back then, my preference was for one in kind of a gold/bronze-ish color that looked fairly upscale. Or black. For whatever reason I ended up with a new bright red ’95 Jetta instead. I probably should have gotten the Mazda, the Protege was a really nice little car, almost like an Infiniti G20 on a slightly smaller scale in both its materials as well as sense of refinement.
My father owned one of these (with the stick) for several years. He enjoyed the driving dynamics and was rewarded with a trouble free ownership experience.
At the time he lived in rural Tennessee, so the Protege was a fairly rare sight for the locals- At several different gas stations folks asked him where he got his “Pro-Teej.”
These were excellent, and often ranked right up there (or above) the Civic as best in class. But then the whole line of Mazda 323/Protoge/3 has consistently been above average.
A friend of mine had the Escort version of the this car. Despite his abuse and neglect of the car, it hung in there for far longer than I expected. I don’t remember it having motorized seat belts though.
You couldn’t go wrong back then in buying a 626 or 323, and then the 626 or Protege, especially in a manual transmission. Simply put they were all great cars overlooked by many. I’ll take a 626 over a comparable Accord any day back then. Ever try to change pads and rotors on a 90 Accord? A 626 is a piece of cake compared to the Accord.
Today I am impressed by the 3 which my wife has. However, I am not impressed that much by the 6. Actually not impressed that much by the 6, the Accord, or the Camry now as they seem too far removed from what they were.
A friend of mine had a red one during his first marriage. Later, after getting divorced, he bought a cheap used black one for a commuter. Both were handsome, durable reliable and competent. But were they more fun to drive than a Civic or Corolla?
Hell, yes. A 2 dr GLC was much more fun to drive than the Civic or Corolla back then but then the underpinnings of the GLC were RX-7. Through it’s evolution the car only got better as Mazdas have always been about handling. I can attest that the 2018 Civic I drove is atrocious compared to the 2018 Mazda 3 after putting it through my handling tests. My only knock against the 3 and all for that matter is the narrow height of the side window glass. Makes me feel as if I am wearing horse blinders and I have a very hard time dealing with that.
Re manual gearboxes – I’m surprised to read that it’s estimated that only 18% of Americans can drive a manual car. I knew it’d be less than here in the UK but I’ d imagined around a third. Lack of opportunity I suppose
I too bought a ’94 Protege years ago as my first standard car, it was 15 years old by the time I bought it, loved that car, mine was an SE. Had a power sunroof, tach and rear spoiler. Had a 3 spoke steering wheel too, drove the heck out of it till the inspection ran out. Good old Canadian winters took its toll on it though. Would love to find another one some day.
Great COAL, and these were Great Little Cars. We had two of them over the years and enjoyed their sporty handling, pep and excellent fuel mileage. No complaints other than they wouldn’t survive my daughter’s proclivity for running into other cars…
Is it just me or do the 323 hatchbacks not have a resemblance to an AMC Pacer from behind? On a serious note a close friend of mine had a 1994 323 until 2010 ish with well over 300,000 KMs and still says to this day it was the best car he ever had.
So weird to see these motorized belts on Japanese cars of this era. Here in Canada the rules were different apparently so we didn’t have those. American cars did but not the import cars.
My first new car. A “manual everything” car, including manual transmission of course. Bought it new as a stripper model, hatchback version, for under $10,000 CAD (without trade in) in 1992. I took it through about 350,000 km before giving it up for scrap 20 years later. Never gave me any trouble, just regular maintenance. Basic, economical, no-nonsense transportation.
Now THIS brings back memories!
One of the finest cars I’ve ever owned was an ’89 Mazda Protege DX. I paid $1600 for it in 2004, I think. It had 79,000 miles on it. It was very similar to the one in the post; same color exterior and interior. 5-speed stick, 4 wheel disk brakes, and a ball to drive.
I still miss it.
Never owned a Mazda, but a “3” is on my short list of cars to replace my current car.
I also like the Stanza, before the Altima came out in the early 90’s (but I liked the earlier Altimas as well). My sister still owns a ’97 240 SX, and between them my 2 youngest sisters owned 4 of them (ok, one was a 200 SX) between them..so Nissans have been in my family for awhile…plus my first car was a Datsun 710.
I kind of did something similar to you in 1981 when I went from my automatic Datsun 710 to the first of a string of 3 VWs (the last of which I currently own)…all of them manuals, the first being a 1978 Scirocco. I wasn’t a fan of the automatic on the 710, but now with advancing age, I’ve resigned myself that my next car will need to be an automatic, if only to allow other drivers than me….seems like fewer people (including my family) drive standard. Its also the reason I’ve held onto my current car over 20 years, as I admit to being in denial, trying to postpone what I consider inevitable.
I had to “reteach” my Mother to drive manual in my car; her brother and she were taking a trip to eastern Europe to visit relatives, and since odd things tend to happen to my Uncle during trips, she wanted to be able to back him up in case something happened. He’s comfortable with manual, and his first car was the same one as my Mother learned on, a ’51 Chrysler Windsor with semiautomatic transmission. However, my Mother has never really been comfortable driving manual, even though my Father owned several ( ’56 Plymouth, 59 Beetle, ’68 Renault, and ’80 Dodge) but as “2nd” cars, she was able to avoid them by only driving the “family” car (except for the Plymouth, which was their only car when they married, but back then I think she jut let my Father drive, not too odd in that neither of my grandmothers ever learned to drive, don’t think it was as common back then). Fortunately, the trip was uneventful and my Mother didn’t need to drive.
Main reason I’m considering the ‘3’ is that it is one of the few models still available as a hatchback…of course I could get another Golf, which I might end up doing….might be silly but I’m not a fan of the vinyl seats VW puts in all but the base models…though my ’78 Scirocco also had vinyl, when I bought my ’86 GTi, sold me on cloth seating from that point on..guess I’m pretty picky.
I was lucky to avoid both the door mounted belts (VW was an early adopter but none of mine had them) and the mouse belts, though my Mother was the longtime owner of an ’88 Tempo that had them…didn’t drive her car often, didn’t bug me too much, but you had to remember to fasten the lap belt anyhow, which to me pretty much defeated the reason for “automatic” restraints…I’d rather belt up manually anyhow, lets it become a “habit” rather than having to adjust to different method depending on the car.
I am looking for a 94 Mazda shifter lever linkage assembly call me 901318 0714
Still got my ’93 running, and while not fast by any means, it is a lot of fun to drive. Unfortunately, I have been wracking my brain trying to solve the same rust issue you mentioned, but at this point the car is so old that the required parts aren’t sold anymore.
-It is certainly a good trainer though, for teaching kids stick~