In the late 1990s, the Mazda 121, the ancestor of the Mazda 2, was a rebadged Ford Fiesta. In 2022, the fourth generation of the Hiroshima brand’s city car will simply be a Toyota Yaris with an M stuck on the muzzle. Explanations.
Better than the Chinese copies, here are the Japanese copies! A strictly true copy and without infringement. Thus, the new Mazda 2 which will arrive in Europe in 2022 will be, except for logos and rims, the exact clone of the Toyota Yaris, the one which was voted “Car of the year 2021”.
Mazda 2: the brand’s first “real” hybrid
The fourth generation of the Hiroshima city car will take this opportunity to switch to hybridization with an on-board electric motor and not just an alternator-starter, as is the case on the current Mazda 2 Skyactiv-G M-Hybrid. A technology that the brand does not yet master. Until now, it prefers to play its all-out on the optimization of thermal engines – which is to its credit – as well as on pure electrification with the Mazda MX-30. The first true hybrid model in the range, the Mazda 2 will therefore benefit from Toyota’s legitimate expertise. Even if it means going to a specialist, you might as well turn to the most recognized.
What are the advantages for Toyota?
So, what win-win agreement has been put in place between the two Japanese firms? For Mazda, the development costs of its city car are clearly lowered, while Toyota can run its plant more. Not that of Onnaing, in the suburb of Valenciennes, but that of Kolin, in the Czech Republic, which will no longer produce the Citroën C1 and Peugeot 108 from December 2021. To replace them, Toyota has started production of the Yaris during 2021 and will soon undertake that of the Mazda, which was spotted in a parking lot at the plant.
READ Citroën C1 (2021). Final range adjustments before cessation of activity!
Then charge the two brands to share the distribution of the Mazda 2 / Toyota Yaris duo in the various target markets. An arrangement that takes into account the locations of the networks of the two brands, but also the preferences of customers. It is more a matter of complementarity than of head-on competition.
Mazda 2, Toyota Yaris: vice versa?
In spring 2019 we attended the The opposite phenomenon across the Atlantic, when the Mazda 2 was used as the basis for the Toyota Yaris. The latter had a specific facies but was devoid of hybrid technology, which is not essential at this level of range on the North American market.
TO READ. New Toyota Yaris: the American Mazda 2
Toyota and Mazda: Perfect Copyists?
Very common in the world of commercial vehicles, this sleight of hand at the label level is also at Toyota. Indeed, the Japanese giant has recently joined forces with Suzuki, to which it supplies RAV4s and Corolla Breaks, respectively renamed Suzuki Across and Suzuki Swace. Suzuki thus benefits from plug-in hybrid technology on the first and simple hybridization for the second.
At Mazda, we are also used to the fact. Let us not retain the copy, far from being compliant, for the Mazda MX-5 / Fiat 124 Spider duo. Which is logical, the two roadsters must each keep their exclusivity. Let’s go back to the time when the fifth generation Mazda 121, ancestors of the Mazda 2, were marketed from 1996 to 2002. They were none other than rebadged Ford Fiestas. At the time, Mazda still took the trouble to modify, albeit discreetly, the grille of its cars. This is no longer the case today.
Perhaps this is what misled the illustrators. The latter, who had imagined the new Mazda 2 on the good technical basis, that of the Toyota Yaris, were more ambitious. They had designed the car with a real typical Mazda muzzle (photo opposite).
