Mazda Sold An Incredible Turbo 4WD Hot Hatch In America And Everyone Forgot About It

Cars from the 1980s and 1990s have ascended to fascinating levels of popularity. Today, people are willing to pay frankly shocking amounts of money for cars from their childhood. If you’re not flush with cash, there are still Radwood-worthy wonder machines out there. One of them is the Mazda 323 GTX, Mazda’s first 4WD car in America and a rare turbocharged hot hatch that seemingly everyone forgot about. Now, maybe we should remember it!

One of the saddest parts about being a modern collector of anything automotive-related is finally having cash to spend, but finding out that the markets you play in have gotten exponentially more expensive. Japanese cars from the 1990s used to be first cars at my high school, now folks are paying $30,000 or more for cars like the 2000 Honda Civic Si. Did you love the Acura NSX and the Nissan Skyline R34 from your youth playing video games? Don’t even think about it unless you have a lot of money to throw around on a single vehicle. People are even spending more than $10,000 on Honda Civic Del Sols and I remember when you were able to get them for $1,000.

The good news is that it’s not all bad! Not all of the cars from the so-called Rad era are bonkers expensive. I was able to import two seriously cool cars from Japan for about $8,500 total and if you know where to look, you can get a great piece of automotive history without having to eat ramen for the next 10 years to afford it.

One of those great pieces of automotive history is a car that remains overlooked by collectors today. The Mazda 323 GTX has all of the right ingredients of a hot car from the 1980s. It started life as a compact hatch, but then Mazda tossed in a turbocharger, sport seats, a manual transmission, and oh yeah, a wicked 4WD system. Yet, only 1,243 copies were sold in the United States over two years and then it seems like most enthusiasts forgot about it and moved on.

Mazda’s Technological Leap

The 323 GTX is built on the 323 hatchback, a car sold in its home market as the Familia. By the time the GTX came around to the United States, the 323 was already on sale for a couple of years and this car was a tour de force.

Mazda says that the Familia started life as a few different vehicles. In the early 1960s, Mazda found out that its customers wanted a light passenger van with decent performance and greater comfort than a work van. In 1963, Mazda answered the call with the Familia Van, a vehicle that Mazda says was designed “to cater to family outings.” The Familia was also made into a small truck.

At the same time, the brand said it was also charting a course to change Japanese sedan history. In 1964, it launched the Familia Sedan, which the company says blended performance, style, and comfort into a form factor that Japanese buyers found addictive. Mazda says it was so hot that the car earned a 23 percent market share in just its first month and 10,000 units were sold by the end of the year.

The Familia would then proceed to go through four generations from 1963 to 1980. Each of those generations saw the Familia bear the same basic layout of an engine up front and rear wheel drive. These engines were commonly compact four-cylinder units, but this is Mazda, of course, so even the Familia got a rotary at some point in its life.

The fifth generation, which launched in 1980, would change everything. Mazda had big ambitions for the Familia. The then-new model would attract a younger, more active audience while the brand would also show off its technical skills in making a whole new car from the ground up. Mazda continues:

Although employing a front-engine front-wheel-drive (FF) configuration for the first time in the Familia Series, Mazda wanted the fifth-generation model to attain the direct shift feel of a FR car. Mazda also aimed for more incisive handling than that of the Honda Civic, plus seats as comfortable as a living room sofa. With the hatchback, Mazda focused on the growing interest in outdoor pursuits amongst the younger generation, which was the Familia’s targeted customer base. Based on the sharp ride for which the Familia had built a reputation, Mazda used the catchphrase “Sporting heart” and signed actor Kinya Kitaoji to appear in its commercials.

This strategy definitely paid off. With a power sunroof fitted as standard equipment, the “Red XG” was well received by the market. Often pictured with a surfboard mounted on the roof rack, the Familia’s angular wedge-shaped design and sporty appearance proved to be extremely popular, and earned it the nickname “land surfer.” The “Red Familia” quickly became a symbol of the age.

The fifth-generation Familia was the first to be named Japan Car of the Year, and it won many more awards in the US and Australia. In Japan, the Familia often topped the monthly sales results over such formidable rivals as the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sunny, sometimes selling over 13,000 units per month. In 1982, only 27 months after the start of production, cumulative sales of the Familia reached one million units. The achievement set a new record, beating the Chevrolet Citation (GM), which took 29 months to reach unit sales of one million, and the VW Golf, which took 31 months.

The Toyota Automobile Museum concurs with Mazda that the fifth-generation Familia, especially one with a surfboard on its roof, became a cultural icon.

Today’s car is based on the sixth-generation Familia, which was introduced in 1985. This car would continue down the front-engine, front-drive path set by the fifth-generation model, but this time, Mazda says, the car was designed to go global.

In this mission, designers gave the vehicle bodywork with flush surfaces with additional attention to aerodynamics. Mazda also wanted to continue the trend of a front-driver with the feel of a rear-drive car, so the body was stiffened up even further to aid handling. Mazda is even proud of the cabriolet version of the sixth-generation Familia as it was Mazda’s convertible before the RX-7 Cabriolet and the MX-5 went on the market.

The sixth-generation Familia/323 was launched at a time when Japanese industry was hitting incredible strides. The nation’s motorcycle manufacturers were experimenting with fuel injection and turbochargers, Honda was experimenting with what would become the NSX, Toyota was sending out bangers like the AE86, and the famous “Bubble Era” was only a year away.

While Mazda talks up the sixth-generation 323’s rigid body and flush, contemporary design, the automaker’s engineers were obsessed with making improvements down to the car’s window switches. Today, pretty much every car uses the same formula for opening and closing power windows. You push the switch down to open the window and then pull up to close the window.

It wasn’t always this way. Many older cars with power windows use a simple rocker switch. Even the BMW E39, which was sold in the 2000s, uses rocker switches for its power windows. Mazda saw this as a problem. In its view, a child trying to stick their head out of a car window may inadvertently activate a window rocker switch with their hands or feet, trapping their heads outside by the neck. Mazda didn’t know of a single recorded instance of this happening, but it decided to fix this before it became a problem, from Mazda:

An engineer at the department in charge of automotive design who had been at the company for five years imagined over and over how such an incident would play out. Was it wrong to install the switch where a child’s foot could reach it? Was there a problem with the positional relation between the armrest and the switch? Within the department, various patterns of switch shapes and layouts were repeatedly discussed, even going as far back as considering the basic principle of what a switch was anyway? In considering different alternatives, the engineer was struck by a new idea. “A switch does not necessarily have to be something that is pressed,” he reasoned. “Would it be possible to prevent such accidents by creating a ‘pull-up’ switch?”

It was in this moment that the idea for the unconventional and innovative “pull-up” switch was born. The new design required the user to curl their finger into the depression behind the switch and drag the switch back toward them to close the window and to simply press it down to open it. This new system not only enhanced safety but also created new value by matching the up-and-down motion of the window with the action required to manipulate the switch, thereby enabling intuitive operation.

For the formal adoption of the newly invented switch system, however, careful examination was required. Great concern was expressed about the unfamiliar operation of the innovative switch, and the team had to comprehensively consider the display and appropriate layout of the switch to make it easy for the driver and other passengers to operate it. To promote the universal design of the switch, ingenuity was demonstrated in a variety of ways, including making the dent shape friendly to fingers of all different sizes and providing the surface of the switch with a non-slip finish. For the verification testing, a male employee even went as far as putting on artificial nails, which were very popular in North America at the time.

Mazda said the world’s first adoption of the pull-up window switch found its way into the 1985 Mazda Familia/323. Now, the automaker states, everyone is doing the same thing with their windows.

The Hot One

Now that we’ve established that the sixth-generation car is a bit of a technological marvel, let’s talk about the spicy one everyone forgot.

In the early 1980s, Mazda began to ramp up efforts to compete in the World Rally Championship. Its Group A entry would be the 323 4WD Turbo, a sixth-generation 323 with full-time four-wheel-drive, a stiffened body, a wide stance, and a turbocharger. Of course, running this car meant that Mazda had to sell a roadgoing version of the racecar to satisfy FIA Group A homologation rules. Enter the Mazda 323 GTX.

Like many homologation specials, the 323 GTX gets fun really quickly. Mazda started under the hood, there a 1.6-liter four gets a snail with an intercooler. That nets you 132 HP and 136 lb-ft of torque, good for a 60 mph sprint in 8.7 seconds. That wouldn’t be a ton of power today, but this was a car weighing in at around 2,640 pounds, so it’s still pretty peppy. Autoweek notes that the GTX was quicker than an equivalent Volkswagen Golf GTI of the day.

It’s also notable that the street-legal GTX was down 120 horses from its racing counterpart. But as Hagerty reports, GTX owners have found it easy to add 50 HP or more just by doing an ECU tune and cranking up the boost.

The engine isn’t where Mazda spent all of its time, either. The 323 GTX also got the full-time four-wheel-drive system with a standard lockable planetary center differential, giving an even 50:50 split between the axles. Mazda then added a five-speed manual, widened the track, installed a rugged suspension, and stiffened the body. Thus, a 323 GTX ended up meaner than a standard 323 from top to bottom.

Inside, you got to sit in Recaro buckets, enjoy a digital instrument panel, and the 323’s full set of power accessories were available to you. Like many homologation specials, the 323 GTX was a flagship and showcase of what Mazda could do. The company even says that when the 323 GTX made its Japanese debut in 1985, it was the first 4WD of its kind in the nation. Technically, the Subaru Justy came sooner than the GTX and the Subaru Leone Wagon came years before, so we’re not entirely sure what qualifiers Mazda is using to say it was first.

What is true is that when the GTX landed on American shores in 1988, it was Mazda’s first 4WD car in America. Car and Driver recommended the GTX as the car to buy if you couldn’t afford an Audi 5000. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a flop. Some sources say it was because of price. The 323 GTX was $12,749, but a Volkswagen GTI was $12,725, so that couldn’t have been the only reason. Maybe Mazda didn’t make the car known enough.

Whatever the reason, only 1,243 examples were sold in America before sales ended after the 1989 model year. It’s said that some of these cars were tuned to within an inch of their lives, so who knows how many even remain. That’s not even mentioning the rust that commonly took out Japanese cars back then.

I found just a few 323 GTXs currently for sale. Two of them are rough project cars and one runs, but has high miles. It looks like if you find one, you’ll pay under $10,000 to get it, which is great!

The 1980s were a wild era in the Japanese car industry where it seemed like anything is possible. Some of today’s beloved JDM cars come from the era, but then we have forgotten rides like the Mazda 323 GTX. If the Nissans and Hondas of your childhood seem too played out or too expensive, maybe try looking for one of these. A 4WD Mazda hatch from the ’80s sounds like a total ball of fun.

Hat tip to Tom S!