Schizophrenia in relation to the automobile.

Sorry, this one won't be very interesting for those of you out for a laugh.

Recently, a lot of Japanese car manufacturers have launched alternate names for themselves in foreign markets (I say recently, in the last 15 years). For example, Toyota have Lexus (big Toyotas sold to posh people) and Scion (little Toyotas sold to posers). None of these are innovative however. In the 80s and 90s, Mazda pulled such a stunt, except they didn't keep themselves to three names, oh no. They came up with all manner of insane rebrandings, including the hilariously confusing idea of selling the same car under three or four badges in the same market. Not only that, but a large number of these cars had rebodied siblings, often in the same brand, and most had totally different names overseas.

This brings us to the example of the Mazda Capella. Wikipedia revealed these inane links:

The Mazda Capella (aka Mazda 626 and Mazda Montrose) was upsized onto the same platform as the Xedos 6 (aka Eunos 500, Mazda Lantis and nearly the Amati 300). The Mazda Cronos (aka Mazda 626) took its place. There was also a rebodied Cronos named the Efini MS-6 (aka Autozam Clef). The Capella's new platform was also used for the new Mazda Lantis (aka Mazda 323F, plus sold in Eunos and Efini dealers, but now a totally different size to the Xedos 6 aka Mazda Lantis). Also, the Capella had a sister car named the Mazda Persona (aka Eunos 300) which was replaced by the Efini MS-8. Now just to be confusing, the Cronos was replaced by the Capella (aka 626). While the Cronos was originally a Capella (and the Capella evolved into a new model), the Capella became a rebodied Cronos, and this is before the 626 name is considered! Anyway, the whole lot were replaced by the Mazda Atenza (aka Mazda6) (which is mechanically very similar to the Ford Mondeo...). This is before we get into the Mazda Luce (whose coupe was the Mazda Cosmo aka Eunos Cosmo), sold with piston engines as the 929, which was replaced by the Mazda Sentia, aka Efini MS-9. This fit above the Capella and the larger Mazda Millenia (aka Xedos 9 or Eunos 800 or nearly an Amati too).

I'm not done yet. The smaller model to the Capella was the Mazda Familia (aka 323, except when the Lantis was, and once Mazda GLC), which had a coupe derivative titled the Mazda MX3 (aka Mazda Precidia, Eunos Presso, Autozam AZ-3, Eunos 30X or even Mazda AZ-3) and over the years became aka Mazda Astina (also a name for the 323F aka Lantis), Mazda Etude, Eunos 100, or Mazda Protege, and now replaced by the Mazda Axela (aka Mazda3).


This is just Mazda. There's only about 4 distinct models in there, but god knows how many actual rebrandings there were. If you want to get more confusing, often totally different marques 'borrow' a car to fill a gap in their range. Mazda also did this, one example is the Autozam AZ-Offroad (aka Suzuki Jimny). Australia's market (the bastard offspring of America's muscle saloons and Japan's economy cars with a good pinch of Supras and Corsas muddying the water) is notorious for it too. The previously mentioned Mazda Familia had some nasty ones, through its life it was also the Ford Laser, Ford Meteor, Mercury Tracer, Ford Topic, Sao Penzo, Ford Activa and Ford Lynx, as well as sharing mechanicals withe Ford Escort, which was a totally different car to the European car named the Ford Escort. The Australian versions of world marques also didn't always stick to one other marque to borrow from, leading to such convoluted nonsense as this:

So, the Ford Corsair was a rebadged Nissan Pintara which was a renamed Nissan Bluebird which was the European version of the Nissan Stanza, which used to be a Datsun, but the Pintara was formerly a Nissan Skyline which shared mechanicals with the Holden Commodore, a big rival of the Ford Falcon, which was the larger brother of the Corsair, which replaced the Ford Telstar, which was a reshaped Mazda Capella (not that bugger again), also known as the 626, which later shared its platform with the Mazda MX6, which was rebodied as the Ford Probe, but the Probe wasn't related to the Telstar or Corsair at all.


Nowadays it's a bit nicer. Marques share platforms more and more, but have the common courtesy to totally rebody their cars. Nobody would suspect that the Mazda2 was a Ford Fiesta, the 3 was a Focus which in turn was a Volvo S40, and the 6 was a Mondeo, now in turn being spun off to Mercurys and even other Fords. VW-Audi Group is a champion at this, it has approximately five platforms, from which the entire ranges of VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT and Bentley are constructed. In fact, one of those platforms is shared with Porsche too, and not yet used outside of VW, making it even more impressive.

So the moral of the story: if you're going to sell the same car under different names, at least be nice enough to give it a different look (the VW Golf / Audi TT / Skoda Octavia / SEAT Leon is an excellent example), and for god's sake don't make up names simply to flog more rebadged hatchbacks. It's a good job Mazda lost a lot of money on their hugely complex multi-brand strategy, else you'd be sitting at home right now trying to decide between a Capella, Cronos, 300, 626, MS-6, Clef, 500, 300 (not the same 300 as the other 300) or god knows how many more, and pondering if there was any larger difference than the brochures.

A mildy humourous anecdotal rant update will probably follow soonish, as usual.