China's FAW now building all three Mazda6 generations

Tue, 13 May 2014

The Chinese auto market is one of the most interesting in the world to look at. Its automakers appear to still be figuring things out and remain open to experimentation. For example, at this moment, you can buy new copies of all three generations of the Mazda6 from showrooms there.

Mazda joint-venture partner FAW recently introduced the latest generation to China as the Mazda6 Atenza, according to Just Auto. Yet buyers still have the option of getting the previous generation as well, which is sold as the Mazda6 Ruiyi. Obviously, that isn't too remarkable – companies in the US have briefly sold two generations of the same nameplate simultaneously for brief points in the past, and the practice is much more common in developing markets. However, Chinese consumers still have the third choice, too – the first-generation model that dates back to the early 2000s, is still on offer, known simply as Mazda6.

While it would be hard to imagine selling three generations of the same models at once in the US, the idea is an interesting one. We enjoyed our long-term test of the latest generation, and the previous models weren't bad cars either, so provided there's a healthy difference in pricing and marketplace confusion is limited by differing names, we can see it working. If nothing else, it's a fascinating illustration of how broad China's developing auto market really is.

By Chris Bruce