I think most car fanatics can trace way back to the very first cars that caught their attention; for me, it started when I was just 3 with my mother’s E23 BMW 728i – of course, I was just 3 and it was nothing more than a big, white, amazing beast that I didn’t know too much about.
Two years later, however, and I was already noticing features on cars and picking up bits of detailed information about them that no kid that young had any business doing.
This brings me to a sunny Sunday afternoon in the early nineties. I think I was about five years old when my parents took me along to test drive one of the cars that was largely responsible for igniting my passion for all things motoring.
You may be surprised then, to know that the car in question was an ultra-conservative, beige-hued 1984 Mazda 626 SLE. It certainly didn’t look like much and was pretty much your typical Japanese sedan – a promise of much reliability but not much to stimulate the adrenal glands.
Mazda also produced coupe and hatchback versions of the '80s 626
This Mazda, however, was an amazing car (by the way, my parents were smitten with the thing and quickly banished any thoughts of the alternative, a Ford Sierra 2,3 GLE) for a number of reasons.
It was the range-topping SLE, automatic model (my mom only ever drove an automatic, being convinced that all manuals were rubbish and the work of the devil) and it served as the family car for around seven years.
We were a family of six and we spent much of that time living on a virtual farm off a terrible dirt road in the Southern Suburbs. Needless to say, CA 378-318 didn’t have anything close to an easy life.
My dad’s carpeting business at the time meant that the boot was always filled to capacity with carpet samples.
But it is the features fitted to this dogged Mazda that amazed me. It sang a little song at every available opportunity: one when the boot wasn’t closed properly, one when a door hadn’t been closed and one when the fuel level dropped down too low.
Bizarrely, I still remember the exact tune of each warning jingle to this very day...
The SLE came with air-conditioning, power steering, often-faulty central locking, electric windows and mirrors, an alarm clock (taking the grand total of tunes inside the car to a stunning four!) and by far my favourite feature, electrically moveable air vents!
These amazing vents moved on their own from side to side, very effectively circulating air around the vehicle. I thought – and still think – they’re an amazingly practical feature and I don’t understand why no other manufacturer seems to have caught on.
Sadly, in the latter half of the car’s life, use of the air conditioner resulted in all kinds of mechanical shudders so the electric vents soldiered on only as a party trick.
Then, there was the driving experience. Of course, I never got to drive it myself (although I did mischievously start it up when my mother ran into a florist one day…) but my parents both maintain it was one of the easiest, smoothest cars they’d driven. This, despite us having owned quite a few BMWs back in the day.
The 626 had a 2,0-litre, carburettor-fed SOHC motor mated to a 3-speed auto. Archaic by today’s standards, but the car itself was really nippy for what it was.
By the end of its tenure with us, it had accumulated well over 300 000kms, scraped its bodywork on the nasty 15-inch rubber we fitted to it countless times and showed some signs of rust.
But like so many cars that appear absolutely ordinary, this Mazda had a certain inexplicable spark about it and ever since, I have harboured a soft spot for the brand that has Zoom-zoomed its way to making far smarter, sleeker and faster cars.
None of which are fitted with the SLE’s quirky electric air vents…
