Mazda to Sell Ford-Built Explorers in Bid to Enter Fun-Truck Market

In a bid to capture a piece of the growing market for so-called fun trucks, Mazda Motor of America said Thursday that it will begin selling its version of Ford Motor Co.’s new Explorer sport-utility vehicle this fall.

Mazda’s announcement marked the first time a Japanese auto maker will buy an American manufacturer’s vehicles and then sell them under its name in the United States.

Generally, U.S. car makers buy Japanese- or Korean-built cars for sale under their names.

The deal underscored the global melding by auto makers as they forge partnerships to cut costs and remain competitive into the 1990s.

It also marked another association between Ford and Mazda Motor Corp. The two have been financial partners since 1979 when Ford bought 25% of Mazda. The two recently began collaboration on new vehicles. Mazda produces the chassis shared by the Mazda MX-6 and the Ford Probe and builds the Probe for Ford at its plant in Flat Rock, Mich.

Ford’s all-new Escort and Tracer subcompact cars, which will debut later this year, are heavily based on Mazda subcompacts already on sale.

The new Mazda sports utility vehicle, to be called the Navajo, was shown Thursday at a preview for the Chicago Auto Show that starts a nine-day run Saturday.

The truck essentially is the same vehicle as the Ford Explorer that will go on sale this spring as a 1991 model to replace the Ford Bronco II.

Fred Aikins, a spokesman for Mazda Motor of America, the auto maker’s Irvine-based U.S. marketing and distribution company, said the Navajo’s front end and interior will be different from the Explorer’s, however.

Aikins said the Navajo will sell in the $13,000-$18,000 price range--about the same as Mazda’s wildly successful two-seat convertible, the Miata.

He said the company expects Navajo sales to hit only 15,000 to 18,000 units a year.

Mazda decided to use a Ford-designed and built sports utility vehicle rather than developing its own, Aikins said, “because developing any kind of vehicle was quite expensive and Ford had a vehicle that was ready. We’ve been looking into a sport utility truck design for several years now.”

Auto industry analysts say that the fun-truck market for Jeep-like sports utility trucks and for small pickup trucks is about the only one that is doing well in the current depressed auto market.

The vehicles often are priced less than comparably equipped sedans and have a definite identity in a market that increasingly is offering consumers look-alike vehicles, said Jim Hillson, senior analyst with Phase One, an advertising research firm in Los Angeles that specializes in automobile marketing.

Mazda is in particular need of a new truck model because its truck sales have been falling since 1986.

One potential problem Mazda faces with the Navajo, several analysts said, is that it will market only a two-door version, while the Ford Explorer will come in both two-door and four-door models.

Two other Japanese auto makers, both headquartered in Orange County, already sell two-door sports-utility vehicles in the United States.

Daihatsu America, headquartered in Los Alamitos, markets the Rocky, while American Suzuki Motor Corp. of Brea sells the Samurai and Sidekick models.

The market for four-door sports utility vehicles is generally considered to be the healthiest.

Ford and General Motors are introducing four-door trucks to compete with Chrysler Corp.’s Jeep Cherokee and with import models like the Toyota 4Runner.

But selling the Navajo allows Mazda to sidestep the 25% import tariff imposed on two-door trucks while putting the auto maker into a new market segment.

“We need to be a full-line marketer,” said Yoshi Taura, president of Mazda Motor of America.