While the world was pre-occupied with the fun and razzmatazz of the Chicago Show last week, Mazda had a small celebration party to mark the production of the 800,000th Roadster (shown above with chief designer Takeo Kijima).
The brilliant, lightweight open two-seater that America knows better as the Miata or MX-5, reached the 800,000 unit mark in Japan on January 30, 2007.
Launched in the summer of 1989, Mazda’s sports car has defied the years, fashions and critics. With some Mazda insiders originally predicting the car would be a total failure, production reached the 500,000 unit mark on February 8, 1999, just over a year after the launch of the second generation.
The little Mazda then entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s top selling, lightweight, open-top, two-seat sports car (beating, we suspect, the MGB) when production clicked over to unit number 531,890 in May 2000.
Roadster number 700,000 rolled off the line on March 5, 2004. The latest, Mk 3 shape model arrived in summer 2005. At the current rate, we reckon the 1 millionth should arrive sometime around 2011, if not before.
source: windingroad.com
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