Mazda 323 GTX

            

    

The Mazda 323 GTX is one of the great all-time unknown performance heroes--a pocket rally racer and the turbocharged, all-wheel-drive progenitor to the Subaru WRX and Mitsubishi Evo.

In base form, the 323 was a nice enough but unassuming also-ran to the Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas that dominated the economy category--pleasant, but not exactly an obvious candidate for hero car status.

However, in the late 1980s Mazda began a short-lived experiment with turbocharging its family sedans. The result was lightning in a bottle--the 323 GT sedan and the 323 GTX hatchback.

The GT was a nice little runner in its own right, but the GTX has assumed cult favorite status thanks to the combination of its hatchback utility, turbocharged horsepower, and full-time all-wheel drive system--an exotic combination well ahead of its time.

The Subaru WRX has become rightly famous for bringing rally-car capability to the everyman, but the 323 GTX did it a decade earlier, in an era in which that combination of power, traction, and utility was otherwise available only at stratospheric prices.

Perhaps the best tribute to the 323 GTX's brilliance is its staying power--even today, they are campaigned in various classes of semi-professional rally championships in near-stock form. Not bad for a 17-year-old economy car.

Another keeper of the flame, Reed Sturtevant, has an excellent 323 GTX photo archive--these photos and more are available for viewing there.

--Chris H.

Comments

[virgil xenophon on July 02, 2008 at 12:21 AM]

I can't believe you didn't highlight two of the the greatest hatchbacks ever--the Dodge LancerES and the Plymouth Barracuda. I had a 1987 metallic charcoal-gray 4-cy turbo with dark(NOT light) gray leather seats with moon-roof and sports suspension, etc. Performed like a 911 Porsch, looked like a BMW and worked like a station-wagon. My 64 Metallic Golden Bronze Barracuda w. Golden Bronze interior seats and carpets also cubed out like a station wagon
but performed like a sports car as I had sport suspension and re-equipped with Dunlop Golden Seals for better traction with the softer rubber. I wish I'd kept both. How about a little PR for this dynamic duo!

[virgil xenophon on July 02, 2008 at 12:22 AM]

I can't believe you didn't highlight two of the the greatest hatchbacks ever--the Dodge LancerES and the Plymouth Barracuda. I had a 1987 metallic charcoal-gray 4-cy turbo with dark(NOT light) gray leather seats with moon-roof and sports suspension, etc. Performed like a 911 Porsch, looked like a BMW and worked like a station-wagon. My 64 Metallic Golden Bronze Barracuda w. Golden Bronze interior seats and carpets also cubed out like a station wagon
but performed like a sports car as I had sport suspension and re-equipped with Dunlop Golden Seals for better traction with the softer rubber. I wish I'd kept both. How about a little PR for this dynamic duo!

[Tom on July 11, 2009 at 01:25 PM]

While the Mazda 323 GTX is a car worthy of an entry here, I would suggest that the Subaru GL/RX and the Mitsubishi Mirage/Galant would be the more logical turbocharged all wheel drive progenitors of the WRX and EVO respectively. Not to say that the GTX is less of a car, but it didn't start the AWD turbo performance phenomenon.