MAZDA MUSEUM

Mazda Museum - Hiroshima Japan The Mazda Museum features some very special cars produced by Mazda over the years.

Mazda (pronounced Matsuda in Japan) has it's company headquarters a short distance outside of Hiroshima. They offer free tours every weekday at 9:30am and 1:00pm in Japanese, and 1:00pm in English. The tour is a must for any automobile fan. Space is limited, and they ask that you call first to make a reservation (Tel: 082-252-5050). If you have any serious technical questions then you should go on the Japanese tour and bring along your own interpreter. The English tour guides are not very knowledgeable.

Mazda Comso Sport, photographed at the Mazda Museum. It is a Series I (L10A) model. Picture by Taisyo

The tour will begin with a historical view of the Mazda company from it's early days making three-wheeled trucks and cork, to the present day Renesis Wankel Rotary Engine. Highlights include the Mazda Cosmos (the worlds first Rotary Engine car) and the 4-Rotor Mazda 787B which is the only Japanese car to win at Le Mans. From there you will be taken to see how the design and build process works at their Ujima plant, and you will be taken onto the actual assembly line to see the latest Mazda vehicles being made. The tour concludes with a view of Mazdas attempts at making Hydrogen fuelled cars and some of their concept vehicles.

To get to the Mazda Museum, take the JR Sanyo line from Hiroshima station going East. Exit at the second stop (Mukainada). Exit the station and head south two blocks to the main street. Turn right and cross at the first pedestrian crossing. Enter the Mazda showroom and go to the information desk to sign in.

(Article based on Wikitravel article by Jpatokal. Based on work by Jose Ramos and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Article used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.)