The Mazda2 gets a nod from Japanese jurors.
The annual awards season is getting off to a big start for Mazda, its little Mazda2 model winning honors as the 2014-2015 Japan Car of the Year.
It was the Japanese maker’s second win in the JCoTY competition in three years – and follows the first-ever victory by a foreign maker, Volkswagen winning last year with the latest-generation Golf line.
“We are both honored and grateful that the Mazda Demio has received such a prestigious award,” said Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai, referring to the car by its name on the Japanese market. “We will continue our quest to build cars that add a certain sparkle to the lives of their owners, and aim to become the one-and-only brand chosen by customers again and again.”
The news comes at an important time for Mazda. The Japanese maker has been struggling in recent years, in part due to the unwinding of its long-term alliance with Ford Motor Co. Mazda has been trying to regain momentum with a variety of new models based on its so-called SkyActiv technology – which debuted with the CX-5 people mover that won the Japanese Car of the Year trophy two years ago.
(Green Truck of the Year finalists announced. Click Here for the list.)
The Maza2 is also known as Demio in Japan.
The Mazda2/Demio is the fourth model to use the SkyActiv system—which is a holistic approach to vehicle design, involving lightweighting as well as the use of more efficient powertrain technologies. The Mazda2 is also the fourth model to adopt the maker’s Kodo, or “Soul of Motion” design language.
The Mazda2 features a 1.5-liter version of the SkyActiv-G gasoline engine. But it is also offered in some markets, such as Europe, with a 1.5-liter diesel, the SkyActiv-D.
The Demio is the fifth Mazda to be named Japanese Car of the Year, the CX-5 taking honors in 2012.
It remains to be seen whether it will score a victory in other markets, though it did not make the preliminary cut among the 10 semi-finalists for the North American Car of the Year, the winner of that award to be announced next January at the Detroit Auto Show.
(Click Here to see the semi-finalists for North American Car and Truck of the Year.)