Ahh the Familia. The car owned by our rival that we just couldn't beat. Until we did!

This one is the 5th generation of a long running series, and this generation was sold and rebadged / re-engineered everywhere in the world with a million variants. You may know it as a Mazda 323, or a Ford Laser or a Mercury Tracer. It may have been a hatchback, or a sedan, a wagon, or a convertible.





It might even have had a diesel engine.





This 1985 version of the car was so ubiquitous, that they continued to make the same generation in South Africa up until 2003, long after new versions superceded it elsewhere.

I knew them here in Australia as Mazda 323s and Ford Lasers, which you still see on our roads, a testament to their reliability. I even had a friend who had a regular Ford Laser who's only distinctive feature was the duct tape keeping the door on.

Yes. It’s definitely the most… car… out of all these cars.

But the best of the best was the Mazda Familia GTX / Mazda 323 GTX / Ford Laser TX3, which is the model on sale here.





Ok, so she's not much to look at. But she's got it where it counts.

All wheel drive, turbo, with 135 horsepower and decent power to weight.

I actually had another friend who had the Ford Laser TX3 and felt distinctively un-Ford like, and I didn't realise this was a Japanese car till many years later when I saw one at a ‘All Japan’ car show.





This is a spicy little nugget and would be a good platform for Hiro. It’s reasonably powerful, and is slightly lighter than the Starlet.

But it is certainly not much to look at… It looks like it’d be more at home picking up groceries than racing down the Shotuko Expressway.