AUTOMOTIVE : Mazda Quietly Plans New Line to Run With Lexus and Infiniti

Mazda officials don’t like to talk about it, but a special team has set up shop at the Mazda Motor of America compound in Irvine to plan a new upscale car line to go up against Toyota’s Lexus and Nissan’s Infiniti.

Mazda calls the team its Pegasus group--a good indication of what the new line might be called should it be given the green light.

The official word is that the project still is just a feasibility study; that no decision has yet been made to go ahead with the upscale line, and that if such a decision is made, it would be two years or more before the first cars arrived in the United States.

But several industry consultants maintain that the company, contrary to its public statements, is well on the way to establishing a new nameplate for the U.S. market.

Earlier reports were that Mazda was considering a new U.S. dealership network to sell just one car, an Americanized version of its Eunos Cosmo--a rotary-engine, two-door, 2+2 coupe.

In its most recent issue, Car and Driver magazine reports that the Pegasus team has put together a stable of three cars for an initial lineup: a V-8-powered luxury sedan that will be larger than the Mazda 929; the rotary-powered Cosmos coupe and a V-6 sedan based on the current Mazda 626 chassis.