1994 Berline Unpronounceable V6

[dome]

A friend of mine with no interest in cars inherited one of these as a temporary runabout from a family member. Despite me telling him to let me know when he wanted rid he traded it in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We don't speak now.

[Mr Bump]

+1 for ker-see-doss

 

Had completely forgotten about these. Vaguely remember a bigger "9" model that must be totally extinct by now

[Cavcraft]

Absolutely love it, well bought chief. They remind me of a sort of 'Vanden Plas' thing, where they make you look at them again because something is just that bit different.

[Ghosty]

I like these!

 

 

 

+1 for ker-see-doss

Had completely forgotten about these. Vaguely remember a bigger "9" model that must be totally extinct by now

 

Xedos 9s look great. Just the same but bigger - there was an optional Miller cycle engine for them too.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Anyone found pronouncing this 'ker-see-doss' with 3 syllables needs to receive a 'pretentious wanker award' and be forced to present a lecture at SF 2017 on the pros & cons of the Citroen 'ker-santier'.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

And bang out a tune on a ker-sylophone.

[dugong]

I was a car salesman for Mazda at the time these were current, we were all sent on a three day course to be taught how to say the name properly: KooSayDos.

 

I kid you not...

It took you THREE DAYS to learn how to pronounce the name? I'm gonna call it the zee dos and fart out a tune in some fog. Life's too short.

 

I'd have rung in sick and demanded they bring back the Montrose as its replacement.

[Junkman]

I was a car salesman for Mazda at the time these were current, we were all sent on a three day course to be taught how to say the name properly: KooSayDos.

 

I kid you not...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, maybe about the three day course

 

Are you tellig me it's possible to say xedos after a three day pissup?

[Honey Badger]

Quality motor, I had the pleasure of blezzing about in one of these in 2001, the V6 is a sweet little engine.

[Pillock]

I remember the launch of them, Auto Express covered the name.

 

Cuss-SEE-dos.

 

Cuss being more of a hissy noise than a syllable.

 

Kinda tells you all you need to know if the most interesting feature they could write about was the name. They've aged well, probably through selling a tiny fraction of 3 Series numbers so you've not tired of seeing them.

[Station]

How is Eunos and Efini pronounced then?

[Lord Sterling]

Sweet car this. Can vouch for that. It's comfy, easy to drive, and an all round nice car. Jealous I certainly am.

 

I've always pronounced it "Exodus" because I'm not Japanese.

[Junkman]

Mein

Auto

Zerstört

Deutsche

Arbeitsplätze

[dugong]

My car fights German equivalents?

[Junkman]

My car destroys German jobs.

[Jon]

Lovely stuff. There are still a few knocking about in NZ but all in dark blue or maroon and all have jibbered paint, so it's refreshing to see one in such good condition. Plus, that colour scheme is a match for the L reg Rover 420GSI my Grandad had at the time, which (grille aside) I liked very much. Without trying to sound like a hackneyed journo, that centre console design does look a bit like the control panel of a 1990's AIWA midi system, albeit with far fewer flashing LEDs, I assume. I guess the P6 dash looks like one of those stereo systems in a teak cabinet, so maybe that's just a thing and I need to get over it.

 

Looking back, Mazda was both really innovative and conservative in the 1990's. Please get some pre-2001 font plates and an SLR, just so you can compose some lovely photos and make me reminisce about CAR magazine some more, in the last few years before it became terrible.

[dugong]

Lovely stuff. There are still a few knocking about in NZ but all in dark blue or maroon and all have jibbered paint, so it's refreshing to see one in such good condition. Plus, that colour scheme is a match for the L reg Rover 420GSI my Grandad had at the time, which (grille aside) I liked very much. Without trying to sound like a hackneyed journo, that centre console design does look a bit like the control panel of a 1990's AIWA midi system, albeit with far fewer flashing LEDs, I assume. I guess the P6 dash looks like one of those stereo systems in a teak cabinet, so maybe that's just a thing and I need to get over it.

 

Looking back, Mazda was both really innovative and conservative in the 1990's. Please get some pre-2001 font plates and an SLR, just so you can compose some lovely photos and make me reminisce about CAR magazine some more, in the last few years before it became terrible.

Hello also_Jon,

 

Your comments have been noted. If anyone has any Magna Mazda plates to use as datum I'll get DMB to knock me a pair up.

 

 

Put about 500 miles on this thing now; took it to East Coast Retros last night. Wasn't a chore driving it up and down the A14, even over that horribly surfaced step at Copdock that sent the rear axle of the Piazza airborne.

 

 

Here it is next to a mad Lexus IS200 shot in the bucketing rain. I can confirm it demists quicker than it cools down - the ventilation is a bit poor.

 

Finally brimmed it for the first time so I can see what it'll do tank to tank. I'm not expecting much to be honest; my MX-3 was dire on fuel for its capacity and performance.

 

I'd have set the Xedos up like the MX-3. As it is, the steering makes the Xedos feel like a far larger car than it is. Whether this denotes prestige in Japan I'm unsure; if a squidgy bloater was the aim, why the occasionally bobbly primary ride and twin strut braces? It was yet another 'Nineties Mazda with confused priorities - although it was different enough for buyers who wanted something softer and smoother riding than an E36 without the question marks over longevity and dealer support an Alfa 155 V6 would have had.

 

The steering almost takes a flying dump on the whole thing as a package. It gets better as you go faster, luckily. It also has farty Pirelli P1 Verdes fitted (bar one shagged Kumho) all round which I might renew as they suit the car.

 

 

Went through the full service history for the car from new. It's had a lot of money spent on it and wore a naff Northern Irish personal plate for most of its life.

Xedos' were actually serviced in a special area of a Mazda dealer under a different plan to the rank and file models; to that end, it has two service books. The '6 was going to be the bottom rung of a Lexus baiting 'super marque' called Amati, but money problems at Hiroshima sank the whole thing before management could spunk all the cash on microniche spin-off brands.

 

Mazda had a bit of an existential crisis back in the 'Nineties. In a scramble to get up market where the big profit margins were, it had two other nameplates it called on to shift specialised (and imported) metal.

'Eunos' most people are familiar with: JDM MX-5s were sold as Eunos Roadsters. Eunos also covered a posh 323 (the 100), the Xedos 6 (500) and Xedos 9 (800) and also went on top of dealerships selling the Citroen AX, ZX and XM in Japan.

 

Then there was Autozam, known for its mad gullwing AZ-1 kei car with a Suzuki three-pot engine (and marketed concurrently as the Suzuki Cara). It also sold the MX-3 as a stripped out loss leader known as the AZ-3; if you wanted an MX-3 with the V6 engine and some poke, you bought a Eunos Presso.

 

As a result, I lobbed in a Eunos 500 brochure from my archive. That's what Xedos' were sold as in Japan. As ever, between continents, the UK got stiffed on specification. Our KLDE V6s got circa 145bhp; the top ranking 500 20Gs got 160 and a limited slip diff for good measure.

 

I like the modern Kenwood Bluetooth head unit the car came with because it has RGB adjustable illumination to match the dirty white back lighting of the dashboard. Yet again, the single DIN stereo we got wasn't a patch on the double DIN JDM equivalent - in car storage must have taken precedent over having a dual tape / CD facility.

The only problem is that my phone keeps stopping playback in Bluetooth mode. It doesn't misbehave with the Leon's head unit or the neon dolphin jukebox Aldi special in the MGF so I can only assume there's a codec issue with whatever software Kenwood uses.

Irritating.

[Cavcraft]

We haven't had a 'How Many Left' post for a while, so doing some digging yours being the Xedos 6 SE means there was only 18 taxed/on the road in 2016, from 1,400 in 2001. Only one previous owner from new, too? Looks a belter of a car, really understated.

[AnthonyG]

That's lovely, a spitting image of the one a work colleague had in the late 1990s. This guy had worked for Triumph and Jaguar back in the day, and I remember him saying it was what Jaguar should have built in the 1990s to take on the Germans. Although obviously the Xedos was better built than a Jaguar!

 

Vaguely remember reading about the proposed 'Amati' brand back in the day, Mazda had seen Acura and Infiniti, as well as Lexus, coin it for their Japanese peers in the US market in the late 80's/early 90's and wanted in on the action. If memory serves me correct the Xedos 9 and US market 929 would also have been part of the range.

 

The bursting of the Japanese bubble in the mid 1990s put paid to all these plans and the losses seriously weakened Mazda. Ford took management control at this point and their nominated chief, Mark Fields, was the first Westerner to run a Japanese company. Ironically he is now CEO of Ford despite the break of practically all Ford/Mazda ties in the late 00s.

 

Are you taking this to the Retro-Rides meet next Weekend? Would love to see it in the flesh.

[Lacquer Peel]

Here's a terrible review from Men & Motors that tells you practically nothing about the car. Did they really do a 1.6 4-cyl version in the UK? I've never seen one.

 

 

I wish I could understand Dutch.

 

[Captain Mainwaring]

Nicely bought. I remember the ads for these trumpeting about them being better looking  than the contemporary 3 Series BM.

I think apart from the slightly fussy front end they're not a bad looking old thing.

[dugong]

Did they really do a 1.6 4-cyl version in the UK? I've never seen one.

Yeah, they did. The manual for my car mentions the 1.6. You occasionally see them pop up on Gumtree sold by traders losing the will to live.

 

The 1.6s used the same BP-ZE as the MX-5, that car renowned for its smoothness and bottom-end torque.

 

That said, the V6 ain't no powerhouse. It'll trundle around quite happily below 4000 rpm but if you want to move smartly you have to get the engine spinning quickly to bring the second set of throttle butterflies into play. I think a Rotrex supercharger would improve it no end. Peak torque is something like 133 lb/ft at 5500rpm and the gearbox makes the most of it. You can bang shift really quickly: Mazda definitely understood the importance of nice FWD gear linkages.

 

You can take it all the way out to 7200rpm and it remains buttery smooth, rather like a small BMW six pot (although they have a consistent throttle response; there's a noticeable - but not jarring - 'step' around 4000rpm when the engine begins to breathe properly). Oddly, the larger 2.5 Mazda K V6s are all mid range (although they'll go to the redline without feeling like they're going tear themselves in half like an Essex or Cologne).

 

I know why it's crap on fuel in town - there's too much reciprocating mass speeding up and slowing down. On the open road you piss juice away winding the engine out and letting it sing.

 

Are you taking this to the Retro-Rides meet next Weekend? Would love to see it in the flesh.

Short answer: probably not.

 

Long answer: I think I'm at Thoresby with the Isuzu Piazza Turbo Owners' Club (although I had formed a half-arsed plan to borrow some Mazdaspeed MS02s and take the Xedos to Prescott).

 

It might be a bit of a logistical nightmare but I'll see what I can do. Trying to stretch the bank holiday Monday out, you see.

[AnthonyG]

Shame. I'm fairly sure I have hidden away a book about the development of the 6, or maybe the 9, which included a chapter about Mazda commissioning a piano concerto to celebrate its launch, or something equally bizarre.

 

Those crazy Japanese! I wonder if they look back on their 'financial bubble' as something to be celebrated or ashamed of. Do remember reading the grounds of the Imperial palace were worth more than the state of California in about 1989!!!

[EssDeeWon]

That is a NICE car!

 

Does not look 23 years old!! Looks more like something that should be wearing a 51 plate!

 

You are David Bailey.

[dugong]

 

Here's a slightly better shot of the interior. Like most 'Nineties luxury cars, the Xedos has a had a crap aftermarket alarm fitted. Was it an insurance requirement? You can also see the OEM floor mats (which are posh and heavy).

 

I'm pretty sad. I wanted an early Xedos (pre 1996) so I could get it on my classic insurance policy. I also prefer the earlier steering wheel and alloys fitted to the first '6s; Mazda progressively cheapened the Xedos range as it aged and eventually started fitting 626 tillers and alloys. The later cars are said to handle better, though. I doubt anyone cared by 1995.

[purplebargeken]

Christ, I'd actually failed to notice that these still exist. Looks really nice!

[John F]

I've genuinely never noticed these before. Well bought, Jon.

 

That grille does munt badly though.

[myglaren]

Always had a fancy for the Xedos 9 but never the cash to get one.Excellent purchase!

 

I always say Zeedos (and Zantia) but as they are faux-Greek presume they should be KSantia and Ksedos.

I don't speak Greek but base my assumptions on the way the various Greek singers I listen to pronounce words beginning with "X"

Like Xenitia in this

. Among others.

[vulgalour]

These have aged much better than expected, there was a maroon one locally a couple of years ago, it disappeared before I ever got a snap of it.  That's all I can add, there's already lots of useful info in here that I have enjoyed reading.

[purplebargeken]

The front grill is less munty than the Lancia Ypsilon.