1974 Mazda 1300 2-door sedan 1.3 SOHC leaded from Australia and New Zealand

Summary:

Cheap and zippy, great car for its age

Faults:

Replaced the water pump early on.

Radiator was leaking and working poorly, and was replaced.

Excess use of choke when cold resulted in carbon fouled spark plugs. This in turn would cause cylinders to mis-fire.

Spark plugs were all replaced.

Ignition switch failed and was replaced.

General Comments:

A small and very light car which was incredibly advanced for its time.

Handles a bit like a go kart and would probably roll easily due to a high centre of gravity.

Keeps stalling in cold weather at stops. Quite cheap to run, but needs a fair amount of maintenance work. It's a great cheap bomb for the kids to learn on.

Would like a tachometer.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 18th December, 2001

5th Jul 2002, 23:15

>Handles a bit like a go kart and would probably roll >easily due to a high centre of gravity.

Um, can it really be both of those?

4th Nov 2002, 07:55

I have had 4 Mazda 1300's in the past 10 years and have had the best success with the latest one. I have rebuilt the engine with flat top pistons and high performance bearings, the cam has been lumped out a bit, but other than that the carberetor is stock and it has been balanced. the biggest problems I have found are 1:over heating, to combat this I have placed a thermo fan with a temp switch and have removed the standard fan. In doing this I have reduced the drag on the engine and successfully overcome the over heating. 2: I replaced the standard coil with a 12v Bosch coil, but in doing this I have had a spark problem. To combat this I have moved all wires,except for the holly blue fuel pump, over to one side of the ballace resister. Yes the car does handle like a go-kart with its low center of gravity sticking to the road like glue. Overall the 1974-75 models are a fantastic little car with the right work can be a lethal weapon.

1974 Mazda 1300 Deluxe 1.3 OHC from Australia and New Zealand

Summary:

A great little car, often overlooked

Faults:

Car would overheat when I first bought it, but it just needed a tune to fix this.

The head gasket blew at about 85,000 miles, but I still drove it for another few thousand before I replaced it with a new one.

A valve got stuck at 99,000 miles so I had to take the head off again and clean it.

The usual dashboard cracks from Aussie summers, worn seats and rust in some panels and the bottom of the doors.

General Comments:

This car was a very cheap car in its day, but it is very well built (better than some modern cars) and has a lot of standard accessories (more than some modern cars, e.g. Hyundai Excel). It is ultra reliable and has a strong motor, as you would expect from Japanese cars of this era.

The power and torque figures are good and the car is quite light which makes it pretty nimble on the road and gives you a go-kart feel. I have overtaken many six cylinder cars up steep hills in this car.

Some would say that the car is pretty dull looking and others have called it a piece of crap. But if these people had ever driven one of these cars they would change their mind I think.

Also the look of the car is somewhat classic I think, and reflects a bygone time when cars were built to last.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 31st May, 2001

15th Jun 2006, 06:13

I had FA3TS in 1990-1993, it was my first own car. I bought it in Germany for 200 DM. The main problem was it was hevily rusted. I used epoxid glue and fabric to cover the holes ;-) But the engine was OK, even with automatic transmission it could accelerate quite good. When the engine was cold it was really tricky to operate with choke until it warmed up.