Mazda may be known today for cars, roadsters, and SUVs, but its humble origins were in motorcycle and 3-wheel truck manufacturing way back in the 1930s. It wasn’t until 1960 that Mazda introduced its first 2-door passenger car, the R360 Coupe. The cartoon-like, bubble-top 4-seater was such an affordable hit it that it sold more than 4,000 in the month of December 1960.
But even in Mazda’s early days, endurance and speed were in its blood. The manufacturer raced and won with motorcycles in 1930, conquered the Singapore Grand Prix with the Familia Rotary Coupe in 1969, and surprised the world at the Swedish World Rally Championship with its 4WD Familia — better known in the U.S. as the 323 — to take Japan’s first victory in that race. And, who could forget Mazda becoming the first Japanese carmaker to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991, racing the first and last rotary engine car to win it – the #55 Mazda 787B?
Mazda may have dropped the Mazdaspeed sub-brand, but it never gave up on the pure pleasure of driving fast. Let’s look at some of its best quarter-mile speed cars for the U.S. market living up to that heritage.
Mazda MX-6 GT, 15.3 seconds
Mazda called the MX-6 GT a luxury sports coupe in its advertising in 1988, the year this vehicle was introduced to U.S. This 2-door coupe was one of several available trims, such as the LX and DX, with either a manual 5-speed or automatic 4-speed gearbox. What set the GT apart from the other trims was that it was turbocharged and intercooled, like many popular sports coupes of the 1980s.
Exactly like the Ford Probe GT, however, the MX-6 GT sported a 2.2 liter engine that produced 145 horsepower and 190 lb-ft of torque. In fact, these two cars shared the same chassis, as well — a variation on the Mazda 626 chassis.
In its review of the 1989 model of the MX-6 GT, Car and Driver found this turbo didn’t have a noticeable lag — it just got up and went, and went so quickly the reviewers believed it had more than 145 horsepower. Car and Driver clocked this ’80s turbo crossing the quarter mile mark in 15.3 seconds, having reached 90 mph.
[Featured image by IFCAR via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|Public Domain]
Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Club, 14.5 seconds
Of course the roadster was going to make this list. Mazda clearly has poured its heart into this multi-decade success story to make the MX-5 fun and fast to drive. The carmaker even created a paper craft version of the vehicle for your desk, for free, out of pure love.
Understandably, readers might expect the Mazdaspeed version of the MX-5 to be the edition with the fastest quarter mile time, which Motor Week recorded as 15.4 seconds at 90 miles per hour. However, it turns out that the fourth generation — which was launched in 2015 — has the zoomiest Miata.
Mazda had been making the Miata with a soft top and a removable hard top for years, but in 2017 it introduced a retractable hard top model of the ND generation called the RF, short for retractable fastback. Or maybe it should stand for rippin’ fastback, because the 2022 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF Club trim has a fast quarter mile, according to Motor Trend’s testing.
The Club version of that year was offered with a 6-speed manual transmission, only, and with a new limited-slip differential designed by Mazda for this rear-wheel drive. It ate up the road with a 2-liter, 4-cylinder engine that even without a turbo produced 181 hp and 151 lb-ft of torque. According to Motor Trend, this well-balanced machine raced through the quarter mile in 14.5 sec, reaching 95 mph.
Mazdaspeed3,14.2 seconds
The Mazda3 hatchback had firmly established a fun and reliable reputation by the year 2006, with owners giving it 4.9 stars out of 5 on Edmunds. Knowing it could do one better, Mazda gave it a Mazdaspeed makeover for 2007, turning it into a hot hatchback by lowering the car and turbocharging the 2.3-liter 4-cylinder engine into a 263-horsepower tornado. Casual commuters were not the target market: this Mazdaspeed only came in a manual transmission. Six speed.
The engineers paid a lot of attention to the undersides, as well, using the limited-slip differential and electronic torque limiter to make sure all that power was doing something useful. Car and Driver got its Mazdaspeed3 to a 14.4-second quarter mile, reaching 99 mph. In Edmunds‘ review, the Mazdaspeed3 covered the quarter mile in 14.2 seconds.
It was an eye-opening amount of acceleration for a pretty innocuous-looking four-door. The Mazdaspeed3 proved popular enough to go through two generations of design, but was discontinued in 2013, making it the last Mazdaspeed vehicle produced before the automaker dropped the Mazdaspeed sub-brand.
[Featured image by Alwayzamd via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|Public Domain]
Mazdaspeed 6 Sport, 14 seconds
The Mazda6 came to America’s shores in 2003 and had a very successful run as a sedan and hatchback before being discontinued in 2021. Known for its sporty handling, it was no surprise that the 6 earned a Mazdaspeed edition to take it up a notch. The 4-door sedan was available for three model years, from 2006 to 2008, and became one of Mazda’s fastest cars ever made.
Like the Mazdaspeed3, the Mazdaspeed6 benefited from lower and stiffer suspension, and came in only the six-speed manual transmission, to separate the drivers from the commuters. The suspension and all-wheel drive system together gave it a corner-loving, rally feel.
Under the hood, the Mazdaspeed6 gained a turbo and intercooler to spice up its 2.3 liter, 4-cylinder engine. As a result, the manufacturer was able to coax 274 horsepower from the factory-tuned engine.
The upshot of all these tweaks and additions? The 2007 Mazdaspeed6 was clocked doing the quarter mile in 14 seconds, reaching a speed of 99 mph, by the PBS car program, Motor Week.
[Featured image by Bull-Doser via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|Public Domain]
Mazda RX-7 FD3S, 13.9 seconds
Rakhmat Darmawan/Shutterstock
The insider name for the 1993 Mazda RX-7 was the FD3S. The third-generation chassis style was called FD, and it was built to run. This RX-7 had a twin-rotor 13B-REW rotary engine that was boosted by two sequential turbos. Mazda says the sequencing was designed to boost low-end torque with the first turbo, and top-end power with the second, which kicked in around 4,000 rpms. This punched it up to 255 hp. While that doesn’t sound enormous today, it was packed into a lightweight 2,850-pound and superbly balanced car that could hustle.
It was an RX-7 that took first and second place at 1979’s 24 Hours of Daytona and held the title of IMSA GTO champion for a decade, so you know the two-seater was fast — until Mazda discontinued it in 2002.
In a 2015 casual test drive of the ’93 RX-7, Motor Trend noted the quarter mile to be about 14 seconds. The Automobile Catalog pinpoints it at 13.9 seconds for the quarter mile.
