What is it?
Some glorious bronzeness from the 1970s. It's a Mazda 929 Coupe and, before you start writing in to tell us that it's obviously an RX-4, don't bother - the RX-4 designation was reserved for examples of this two-door, Bertone-styled body that were fitted with Mazda's hallmark rotary engine. This model, however, has a conventional 1.8-litre, four-cylinder engine. Yes, pistons, not rotors. Hence it's a 929 Coupe, this one hailing from precisely the same year that Brian Clough served his infamous and ill-fated 44-day stint as Leeds United's manager.
Why are you driving it?
It was part of Mazda's 100th birthday celebrations, somewhat curtailed by the coronavirus crisis of 2020 but yet still brilliant, as the Japanese company put on a mix of its UK and German heritage cars to drive in and around Augsburg, home of the Mazda Classic Automobile Museum Frey. Seriously, if you're ever in this part of Germany, go and have a look round this place - it is terrific. For many, many reasons, of course, but most shiningly of all because the museum has a Mazda Parkway in there. It's a rotary-powered school bus, in case you're wondering. And yes, we did just write a combination of letters that read 'ROTARY-POWERED SCHOOL BUS'. We couldn't stop laughing about the deranged genius of that one for days.
Is the 929 any good these days?
Well, it's adorable in the sense that it shows you how soft affordable performance cars once used to be. Given that the 929 was also sold as the RX-4, and that it was a big, grand four-seat coupe with frameless windows and other advanced accoutrements, you might be surprised to know that driving one around today is like sitting in a comfy armchair atop a waterbed that's in a lovely, warm bubble bath. Seriously, the ride comfort on the 929 Coupe is out of this world, given that this is a cared-for museum piece and so its dampers are in tip-top condition; having said that, the body control is what you'd expect - free and easy. There's a lot of dive from the nose under even moderate braking, you lean to the outside of the car significantly taking corners at 30mph, never mind 60mph, and when you gun the 1.8-litre 'R4' engine, the back of the Mazda squats down amusingly.
This all makes it even more charismatic, though. And with its crisp four-speed gearshift action and steering that's surprisingly bereft of dead travel, it proves to be an amiable enough companion for a bit of mild (with emphasis on the 'mild', here) hoonery; it'd be a perfect car for a retrospective police procedural involving lots of pursuit scenes through warehouses filled with big piles of cardboard boxes and a predominantly 'wah-wah' guitar-laden soundtrack.
Although these cops would have to be chasing something fairly slow-moving. As we'd politely suggest that trying to claim that a machine with a power-to-weight ratio of 73hp-per-tonne - at the absolute best, when it was brand new and its engine was delivering all of its, um, oomph - would never have stuck in an 8.5-second 0-62mph time. The performance of the 929 Coupe is almost as leisurely as the crushed velour suit you should be wearing to fit in with its glorious period interior, because at one point on the test, while we were working its engine as hard as we dare (with, admittedly, a sizeable dash of mechanical sympathy for a 46-year-old museum piece mixed in to our driving style), the Mazda was being comfortably left behind by that widely accepted road rocket, an Opel Meriva CDTi. Ah.
Is it a genuine classic, or just some mildly interesting old biffer?
Sadly, while our hearts would love to tell you it's a classic, this one has to go down as a mildly interesting old biffer. No one we know would say that the first classic Mazda they were looking for was a 929 and the Coupe is one of those cars from yesteryear that is slowly fading away in the mists of time. That one has been preserved as beautifully as this example has been gives us a warm fuzzy glow inside, and it was most definitely as wonderful to drive it as it was to behold its 1970s aesthetic glory, but as much as we adored channelling our inner Sam Tyler this is one which will have to go on the list of the automotive curios of yesteryear, rather than a cast-iron classic in the making.
The numbers
Model tested: 1974 Mazda 929 Coupe
Price: when new in 1974, £1,799 (circa £18,890, inflation-adjusted for 2019); used examples anything from £8,000-£10,000 today
Build period: 1972-1978
Build numbers: unconfirmed by Mazda HQ in Japan
Engine: 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol
Transmission: rear-wheel drive, four-speed manual
Body style: two-door coupe
Combined economy: c.25.8mpg
Top speed: 100mph
0-62mph: 8.5 seconds
Power: 83hp at 5,000rpm
Torque: 137Nm at 2,900rpm
Weight: 1,140kg
* With thanks to Keith WR Jones for assistance with the figures in the tech spec.
