(first posted 4/13/2016) Trust the Japanese, with their veritable smorgasbord of domestic market choices, to manufacture two mechanically-related sedans that look extremely similar and yet share not a single exterior panel. The HC-Series Mazda 929, badged Luce in Japan, was available as either a sedan or a hardtop. Unfortunately, North Americans received only the bland sedan. In Australia, we were fortunate enough to receive both the sedan and the slightly less bland hardtop.
The previous generation of 929, the HB, had also been sold as a hardtop sedan or more conventional sedan, as well as a dashing coupe that was available with the Wankel rotary engine and badged as Cosmo in some markets. But for those piston-powered HBs, the most powerful engine available was a very mild 2.0 four-cylinder; this was available with a turbocharger, but only in a handful of markets. The underpinnings were conventional, with the HB 929 featuring a semi-trailing arm rear suspension. Alas, its rakish wrapper disguised a rather pedestrian offering. The HB was never offered in the United States.
The HC was a big leap. It featured Mazda’s first V6 engine, a creamy smooth and refined 3.0 mill. Still rear-wheel-drive, the rear suspension was now an independent, transverse-link set-up. Although the HC was still constrained by Japanese taxation-related width restrictions, it represented an impressive effort by Mazda to tackle premium sedans from Japan, Europe and elsewhere. And yet Mazda went ahead and wrapped it in achingly dull styling.
Well, it looked big at least. Alas, it looked painfully derivative, a melange of S-Class and bland JDM luxury sedan cues. The hardtop – available in Japan with the 1.3 13B turbocharged Wankel rotary – was easier on the eyes, with smoked taillight clusters, frameless door windows, and a 1.18 inch lower roof. Overall length was 2.36 inches less than the sedan, although other dimensions – like the narrow 67.12 inch (1700 mm) width – were shared.
The HC-series was launched in the Australian and North American markets in late-1987 but the Wankel rotary-powered model stayed in Japan. Australia received the hardtop but North American consumers were given the choice of an available five-speed manual transmission. Sales were slow in North America and the manual transmission take rate must have been minuscule as by 1989 it was gone. By 1990, the available Automatic Adjusting Suspension – allowing the driver to choose between two damping settings – was also discontinued in the North American and Australian markets due to slow sales.
It may have looked like some frumpy JDM luxury sedans like the Nissan Cedric and Toyota Crown, but the 929 fortunately had a bit more spring in its step. Body roll was controlled and its ride and handling was well-balanced thanks to the all-independent suspension.
Initially, the 929 had an advantage in power over many rivals but by 1989 the new Toyota Cressida and Nissan Maxima shaded the 929’s 158 hp and 170 ft-lbs. Still, the 929’s single-overhead cam, fuel-injected V6 was smooth and mated to an automatic transmission with excellent shift quality. It was with its quiet cabin and impressive refinement that it more resembled those plush JDM sedans, but unlike a Crown if a corner appeared the 929 wouldn’t embarrass itself.
That quiet cabin featured comfortable seats that unfortunately lacked in the bolstering department. Faux woodgrain trim was splashed liberally across the dash, although the interior design was criticized by some for having too many different textures and colors. Four could sit comfortably in the cabin, but the 929’s narrow width and protruding transmission tunnel put a fifth passenger in an unenviable seating position. Standard equipment was comprehensive: power windows, mirrors and locks; oscillating dashboard vents; and power disc brakes front and rear, with optional ABS. Leather seats and a heated driver’s seat were optional.
For 1990, a more powerful 24-valve, double-overhead cam 3.0 V6 was made available in the hardtop (Australia) and S sedan (North America). This punchier V6 put out 190 hp and 191 ft-lbs of torque, more than the Maxima and finally lineball with the Cressida. But for those who have come to associate Mazda with “zoom-zoom” and a sportier image than the more staid Toyota brand, driving the Cressida back-to-back with the 929 would have come as a surprise. The Cressida had more engaging handling and a firmer suspension tune, while the 929 was softer and more refined. But the 929’s edge in refinement wasn’t overwhelming and left Mazda’s flagship in an uncomfortable position: no strong image, thanks to derivative styling, and no real point of distinction from its rivals. The 929 was comfortable, pleasant, refined, high-quality and… well, nice. For many, that was sufficient. But it didn’t give the 929 much momentum, especially in North America where it was a new nameplate and up against the hot-selling Acura Legend.
1991 was the last year for export sales of the HC. It remained for sale in the Japanese market for a few years and was also sent to South Korea (in dowdier sedan form), where it was sold as the flagship Kia Potentia.
The next-generation 929 featured dashing, curvaceous styling albeit at the expense of interior room and trunk space. Alas, the return of stylish lines to the 929 series was short-lived: the 929 was discontinued from North American markets after 1995, replaced by the Millenia. The styling proposal for the aborted V12 Amati 1000 was dusted off for a restyled 929 in 1996. The price may have been slightly reduced, but $AUD 80,000 was an outrageous price to most Australians for such a nondescript sedan with a mainstream badge on it; $80k was BMW 5-Series money. The 929 was consequently axed in Australia after just two years and survived little longer in Japan, wrapping up production in 1999. Again, the tooling was sent to Kia (it was sold as the Enterprise). The HE Sentia was a repeat error by Mazda, the company expecting once again for a flagship with such anodyne styling to sell.
The HC 929 could have been more successful, particularly in the North American market, considering its pricing was well under that of the Acura Legend, and it had an absorbent ride, competent handling and a silky smooth V6 engine. But it was already working with a handicap: a mainstream brand name instead of an Acura or Lexus badge, and a brand name that was less-established and successful than Toyota. What it didn’t need was anonymous styling to further prohibit success. Americans, in particular, were clamoring for high-quality Japanese imports. They just weren’t clamoring for the 929.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1986 Toyota Cressida
My father had a 929 4 door hardtop as per the first photos in this post. It was a light metallic green colour – many wore this shade. A space age dashboard and all manner of standard equipment, but a very low roof thanks to the moon roof and it was painfully slow and underpowered. Seriously it was flat out getting up our long and steep driveway which had not been a problem for any other car before it with the exception of a Citroen GS Club I once had. Metal panels were incredibly thin – I remember once denting the panel above the front wheel with my knee and pulling it straight out by hand!
Beautifully built things that delivered outstanding highway fuel consumption. Absolute rubbish in the city. All eyewateringly expensive. The first shapes were once quite common. Haven’t seen either type in years.
I’m going to nitpick & say its not a true hardtop. There’s still a B pillar under the frameless door glass. ‘Pillared Hardtop’ anyone ?
End of nitpick/rant, and thanks for the article, I haven’t seen one on the roads for years.
The pillared hardtop was a very common and popular body style in the Japanese domestic market from the ’70s well into the mid-90s. (There were also some pillarless four-door hardtops into the early ’90s.) One could be pedantic about the usage, but “pillared hardtop” is how they were marketed and the term was well understood and fairly consistently applied, at least in the home market — for export, most automakers generally only bothered identifying the style as a hardtop if they exported both the hardtop and the pillared sedan. (The obvious exception is the Toyota Camry Prominent, which was marketed in the States as the Lexus ES250 rather than as part of the Camry line.)
I miss frameless door glass so much I’d be glad to accept a pillared hardtop.
I like the HB series for its overt 80s vernacular – probably the most interesting large Japanese models from the era. These, on the other hand, are just bland. The curvy gen after these could have passed for a Jaguar.
+1.
The Luce/929 seems to have suffered from me-too-syndrome-induced anonymity. The sort of Japanese buyers who bought a Crown, Cedric, or Gloria were quite conservative, judging by the models that were popular with that crowd. (I think if you were an affluent yuppie, you were more likely to buy a European import or maybe something like a Soarer.) So, after trying some more adventuresome styling and technology with earlier Luces, Mazda tried to appeal to those buyers by going super-conservative and ended up leaving the car with no real identity beyond the rotary engine, which export markets didn’t get.
The V-6s — there was a cheaper 2-liter version at home as well as the 3-liter — seem to have been a grudging admission that buyers in this class weren’t that interested in the rotary. However, with less image, less brand loyalty to tap, and fewer dealers, it clearly wasn’t enough.
This car had a number of attributes. in terms of the USA market. The styling was a larger, statelier version of the style of the volume model the 626, also new for 88. Since the obvious market is upgrading Mazda fans, this was a help. In the USA, the hatchback version of the 626 was offered. It resembled the JDM hardtops and was not successful. Since it was a flagship, conservative Mazda styling was what was called for
It was also impressive that Mazda took the time to do a fresh V6 engine, instead of trying to send over a rotary. That just would have lacked torque and been a gas guzzler.
This type of Japanese sedan appeals to me a great deal more than the kind of Japanese sedan we get today. Todays offerings tend to be designed just for the USA and therefore can be seen as predatory toward the domestic brands. Today’s Mazda 6 and 3 are exceptions.
This 929 however was distinctively Japanese and distinctively Mazda, and so when exported, offered USA buyers a taste of something different. The curvy later version did not do well, a flagship is a mature audience and being a true Japan offering was ever more handicapped by yen value and Japanese labor cost. I am sorry to see this type of car go away.
Thanks William for this great writeup that includes your interesting Australian perspective.
While the hardtop version we never got here in the States is kind of appealing in its very ’80s JDM way, the sedan was both highly generic and very non-premium looking for its time, something I’m sure hurt sales. Mazda’s lower sales volume, lesser religious following, and lack of a luxury brand for its flagship also hurt the 929 against new luxury flagships from Acura and Lexus. The 929 was in the same boat as the Cressida – the snob appeal just wasn’t there.
BTW, I’ve never seen that HB coupe before. Maybe it’s just me, but the rear roofline looks very reminiscent of the 1988 GM10 Cutlass Supreme coupe.
That blanked out C pillar was a real fad at the time. On the Cutlass picture you showed, if Olds had done a better job hiding the B pilar, as in the Japanese pillared hardtops, they really would have had a neat floating roof effect.
They would of course had to move the door handle, but the location seemed to give trouble in colder climates anyway.
I suspect both of them owe something to Citroën aesthetically.
Although I generally ignored most Japanese cars as generic, the pillared hardtop on some models caught my attention. As a lover of hardtops and pillared hardtops when they were current to U.S. makers, it was a brief breath of fresh air so to speak in a sea of clunky full-door constructed sedan. Now to get one, one has to shell out major bucks for a Mercedes-Benz CLS550.
One more chapter from the novel entitled “Mazda can’t catch a break.” Other than niche models like the RX series and the Miata, the company’s history is offering cars that are oh so promising, but that fail to catch on in any significant way.
I always thought that the 929 would sell better than it did. But then I have thought the same about almost every other Mazda sedan.
You reeled me in with several uses of the word “hardtop”, but all I see are B pillars!
Silly man!
I’m gone. Nothing of interest here for me.
When I visited Japan in the mid 80s I saw several HBs, not all that many HCs, though. Or maybe it was because the HB had such “unusual” styling that I noticed it more?
It’s kind of a shame that Mazda has left this market segment, but since it’s shrinking anyway…
I always thought what the 929 needed (and to a lesser extent the Cressida), was a wider range of trim levels. A bare-bones strippo version that could advertise a low base price along with a mid-spec for buyers who wanted enough trimmings for comfort without extending to button-tufted chrome-and-woodgrain everything inside. But no, it was full Brougham or nothing and the people who liked that were probably the most likely to have a buy-American mindset.
For that matter, look at how the Maxima’s image and profile (and, post-VRA, sales) took off once they added the sporty SE alongside the broughamy GXE model.
I could be wrong, but Nissan sold a “price leader” GL Maxima in the mid 80s, I imagine buyers voted with their wallets, and it was eventually upgraded to GXE. At the same time, the Maxima line-up included the SE, so there has been an SE (at least in the U.S. market for just over 30 years).
And of course there has “always” been a GLE.
The GL was just an earlier trim of the GXE, the 2nd gen Maxima’s 85 and 86 model years had the GL and the SE. The SE was only available in a 5 spd manual those two model years. For the 87 model year refresh the GL was now called the GXE and the SE was available with an automatic transmission. For the 3rd gen 89-94 there was the GXE and SE, 4th gen 95-99 we had the GXE, SE and luxurious GLE trim appeared (prior you just loaded up the GXE). 5th gen from 00-03 we had the GXE,SE and GLE as well. 6th gen 04-08 we had the SE and the SL which was the luxury trim replacing the GLE trim, base SE was the base Maxima for this gen. 7th gen 09-14 there was the base S, SV, and SV Sport replacing the SE trim. Finally for the 8th gen we have the base S,SV,SL,SR and Platinum, the SR is the sport version, Platinum is the luxury version 🙂
I always liked the styling of the last generation 929. The Millenia, on the other hand, never did much for me. One of the disadvantages the last 929’s had in the marketplace was their RWD configuration at a time when just about everything they were competing against was FWD. By the early 90’s FWD was just expected, and was commonly viewed as preferable by much of the buying public. It’s a shame, as obviously 20 years later people have awakened to the fact that it’s less than ideal in many applications, but products like the 929 didn’t stand much of a chance back then.
The U.S. brochure for the 1988 929 was almost apologetic for introducing a new-to-America car with RWD. There was a whole paragraph headlined “A new car with rear wheel drive?”, going on to explain despite the widespread conversion to FWD at the time (including Mazda’s own 323 and 626), that RWD still had some advantages. It didn’t convince my dad who dropped the 929 from consideration upon learning it didn’t have FWD.
The version of the 929 we got in the States ended up looking a *lot* like a more squared-off version of the Acura Legend. Both bowed for ’86, so I’m sure the designers of both had the W124 and W126 Benz in mind, but the Legend looked more elegant than the very upright 929. The sedan version was, as stated, a very good car wrapped in very anonymous sheetmetal.
The hardtop, while still not unmistakable, was more distinctive, and more appealing. It also, as it happens, resembled the upcoming LS400. (Which also was designed with Mercedes as the main reference, so these things will happen.) I wonder why they didn’t bother to bring it here?
You summed it up well. A Cressida competitor fighting for a tiny slice of the market.
I’d forgotten that there was a final 929 generation that we didn’t get here.
And the last 929s that we did get here seem to have all disappeared, at least around here.
Theres still a few Millenia style Luce around here cheap as chips to buy it seems values fell off a cliff once they landed ex JDM, or is that from the frequently seen smoking tailpipe?
I wouldnt get too excited about the fancy suspension set up in the Luce they handle like the big soft bag of shit they are, totally tuned for comfort like all mid size to large Japanese cars until recently the zoom zoom advertising era sought to change the image I know, but they should have told the production engineers.
I had a ’92 MPV which used basically the same drivetrain and platform. Can certainly confirm that the V6 and transmission were smooth and quiet, although somewhat thirsty.
Interesting read.
That interior is not a great look though, with that wood-a-like all other the place.
IIRC , Europe got the last 929 as the Zedos 9 and my boss had one.Pleasant enough to ride in, but it felt a lot like a big 626 with leather seats and not that distinctive. It was replaced by a SAAB 9000 saloon of all things
The US market 929 didn’t have any woodgrain in it for some reason. I always thought it would look better with wood but was unaware other markets actually had woodgrain trim.
I’m a tad late here, but an enjoyable lunchtime read. One of my previous tenants had an HC hardtop a couple years ago, and there are still a few others left here – they weren’t overly popular when new, but plenty of the rotary-engined HC models were imported here ex-Japan. The few I still see around are lowered with blacked-out windows, huge wheels/exhaust/stereo – their bland squareness (square blandness?) and shallow-looking side glass makes them look quite gangsta when modified.
When they came out I remember one of the Aussie car magazines counted how many different colours, materials and textures the interior held – apparently the plasti-wood was even in different grains and colours depending on where it was applied and they were not impressed!
I don’t mind the interior styling, although it does somewhat resemble a super-sized 323! I must admit that I do like the exterior styling – the resolute squareness is distinctive.
The HB was and still is a much more unique and interesting piece of design though. Plenty sold here new and as used imports, and I still see a couple around most weeks. Even the pillared sedan (photo below) was quite different – albeit in a rather hideous way…
The Jaguaresque HD is simply gorgeous looking inside and especially out, Mazda was at the top of their styling game with that shape. The HE (of which there are plenty left here) are an inelegant and dismally disproportionate design by comparison – although stylistically they’re probably a better successor to the HC than the HD was.
it’s a shame the final 929 was sent to the scrapper.I recall looking at one when my parents couldn’t get their E Class Mercedes out of interest but it didn’t go further than that.What went wrong might one ask.If they had kept it at $65,000 it might have stood a chance.For E230 OR 523i Money you could have got the Mazda plus a soon to be superseded at that time 121 Bubble 1.5 Automatic with change to spare in an era when the Germans would have cost $100,000 by 1996
Bring back the 929! Here’s a selection of the variants:
It’s like Mazda wasn’t quite sure what to do with the 929. They may have been competent cars technically, but styling alternated between interesting and boring with each generation, as though they weren’t quite sure what the market needed. And in return, the market never knew quite what to make of these.
A work colleague had a first-gen 929, the LA2; it handled Melbourne traffic okay, and was nice enough to ride in but cramped and over-styled. Nice enough basic shape but so many fussy details. Also available as the RX4 I think it was the last rotary sedan Mazda sold in Australia. They were quite popular.
The second-gen LA4 was hideous; one local magazine described it as looking like a length of pregnant water main! That faux-Mercedes front end was gross. I only knew one person who owned one. Didn’t know him
well enough to ask what made him buy it, but the question was always in my mind!
The third gen HB looked okay in sedan form but beautifully clean in the hardtop styles which I was surprised Mazda sold in Australia. Cramped though, and must have needed the rotary to perform.
This HC retreated to dull styling; still, dull is better than repulsive. Conservative, nothing to stand out. Unfortunately that seemed to translate to ‘move on, nothing to see here’ in the showrooms. You’d seed them around occasionally, but they were nowhere near as popular as the smaller Mazdas.