1981 Mazda 626 Luxurious: Scrimping on Sport

From the August 1981 issue of Car and Driver.

At first blush, nineteen hundred eighty-­one wouldn’t seem to be a year of great change for the Mazda 626. It takes the keen eye of a Mazda salesman to pick a new 626 out of a lineup from more than ten paces, and this year’s specification sheet reads like a photocopy of last year’s. Which is why the 626 is one of this season’s biggest surprises. Truth be known, it’s a very different automo­bile now.

The specific subject of this short take is this year’s new addition to the fold, the 626 Luxury. Though Mazda bills the Luxury as a separate model, it’s actually an all-inclusive, check-one-box options-and-trim package. And since 626 Luxurys are little different from standard-issue 626s under the new trim, most of what we say here applies across the board.

As you might guess from the quirky name, the 626 Luxury doesn’t come with four­-wheel drive or mud flaps. The package, which is available on either the two- or the four-door sedan, includes fancier upholstery and a heavy helping of comfort-and-conve­nience items—all intended to push the 626 into sporty-personal-car territory with the likes of the Toyota Celica Supra, the Datsun 200-SX, and the Honda Accord LX.

You may recall that the 626 was anything but a stripped-down tin can to begin with. The $7295 base 626 offers the kind of arm’s ­length standard-equipment list that the Japa­nese have become famous for. Just a sam­pling: handsome herringbone fabric uphol­stery, full instrumentation, a five-speed man­ual transmission, an AM/FM-stereo radio, comfortable reclining front buckets with an adjustable lumbar support and a four-way­-adjustable lower cushion for the driver, an electrically operated outside mirror, inter­mittent wipers, a remote trunk release, and a split, folding rear seatback.

Life in the deluxe lane, Mazda obviously reckoned, demanded a whole lot more stan­dard hardware, so the $1800 premium you pay for a 626 Luxury buys another round of equipment. A set of 185/70SR-13 radials on aluminum wheels replaces the standard 165SR-13 tires and steel rims. Halogen headlights are plugged in up front. The pas­senger gets their own electric door mirror. In­side, handsome corduroy displaces the stan­dard car’s fabric. The sound system is up­graded with two more speakers. Other accoutrements include an adjustable steering column, power steering, power windows, an electrically operated sunroof, cruise control, map-reading lamps, a remote fuel-filler-door release, and more. Our car, in fact, had but one option included in its $9685 sticker price: air conditioning.

What’s more, all of this good stuff is packed into an interior that rivals an Audi’s for good taste and quality. Funny model name or no, the 626 Luxury still has the look of a European driver’s car, right down to its four-spoke steering wheel.

While we’ve always liked the 626 for its Continental ambiance, we loved past ver­sions for their verve. The old 626 had the feel of a half-priced BMW 320i to it. The supple suspension could keep the 626 glued down over bumps that might put some air under the wheels of a Camaro. The steering was accurate. The engine had enough zip to keep things interesting. But alas, that’s all changed. To put it bluntly, the 626 Luxury isn’t much fun to drive—and only part of the problem is the Luxury package.

For one thing, the 626’s road manners have gone sharply downhill. The suspension doesn’t seem as ready to cut and run when you twist the steering wheel. (Mazda, howev­er, says the calibrations are unchanged.) The new power steering is rubbery. Worse yet, pavement that’s scalloped near the shoulder gives the front end fits. With every undula­tion the 626 straggles off toward the edge like a nosy puppy; it has to be constantly re­strained. How much of this is a result of the power steering, we really can’t say. But even if the handling of the standard 626 is up to snuff, there’s no getting around the deficien­cies in the engine bay of all 626s.

While most carmakers have been improv­ing performance of late, Mazda has gone just the other way with the 626. The 74-hp, 1970-cc four-cylinder, a refugee from Mazda’s B2000 pickup truck, wheezes heavily when you push it and performs as if it were pulling a trailer. Though the new 626 has lost only 6 horsepower to emissions regulations in the past three years, the new emissions gear Mazda fitted for 1981 seems to have sapped all the life out of the engine above the 4500-rpm power peak. (The one positive side effect is an im­pressive 17 percent improvement in fuel economy, from last year’s 24-mpg rating to this year’s 28 mpg.) The best the overbur­dened engine can manage is a leisurely 17.3-second stroll to 60 mph, an interminable 5.5 seconds longer than it took the 1979 car. And our test car’s 91-mph top speed is off a whopping 13 mph as well.

The net result of this lack of oomph is that you always seem to be whipping the poor en­gine into a froth just to stay ahead of traffic­—never mind playing boy racer. And that observation pretty much sums up the 626’s problem. The solution, we believe, is already on the drawing boards in the form of an all­-new, high-tech, front-drive 626, due in 1983. Given Mazda’s penchant for getting it right, we expect it will prove worth waiting for.

Director, Buyer’s Guide

Rich Ceppos has evaluated automobiles and automotive technology during a career that has encompassed 10 years at General Motors, two stints at Car and Driver totaling 19 years, and thousands of miles logged in racing cars. He was in music school when he realized what he really wanted to do in life and, somehow, it’s worked out. In between his two C/D postings he served as executive editor of Automobile Magazine; was an executive vice president at Campbell Marketing & Communications; worked in GM’s product-development area; and became publisher of Autoweek. He has raced continuously since college, held SCCA and IMSA pro racing licenses, and has competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona. He currently ministers to a 1999 Miata and a 1965 Corvette convertible and appreciates that none of his younger colleagues have yet uttered “Okay, Boomer” when he tells one of his stories about the crazy old days at C/D.