Mazda MX-6

The MX-6 was in production for 10 years from 1987-1997 and saw redesign in 1991, whilst North America didn't see the redesigned 2nd Generation until 1993, the rest of the world had them a long time before. This was due to the north American models being built in the US and requiring many design changes to make the car meet US legislation and of course, make them cheap enough for the market. The differences are not always noticed, but they do mean the US made cars were cheaply made and as such suffer from more reliability issues than those produced for the Asian, Australasian and European markets. The auto transmission on US built cars are simply awful, this is because they used the Ford transmission, whilst the rest of the world used the Mazda built and designed auto transmission.

The 87-91 MX-6 was a bland, boxy little car that did little to impress. However the turbo 2.2 version was quite quick, but still not as quick as it's competitors. A problem that Mazda has always seemed to have.

The 91-97 MX-6 was a far superior car in looks, whilst other Japanese car makers were producing bland boxes, Mazda took the design lead with a curvy coupe and loaded it up with the powerful 198BHP KLZE engine... But only for the Japanese market. The rest of the world got screwed with 164BHP KLDE

There are many variations of the V6 KL series engines. The KLDE was widely used in North America, Canada and Europe and produces 163-165BHP (depending on year). Japan had the KLZE and the KFZE 2.5lt and 2lt, producing 198 and 159 BHP respectively. The engine was also used in many other versions of Mazda cars and some Fords.

Let's dispell one myth though. The MX6 is not and was never designed from the Ford Probe, Ford took the platform and created the Probe rfrom a Mazda designed and built car. They also made a mess of it, the Probes are ugly badly built cars.

quote - hotassgt@mx6.com