The classic will end。
Maurada officially confirmed that the end of maurada 6 production worldwide, in fact, had ceased production in japan in december last year, while overseas production would cease as parts were depleted。
It is worth mentioning that, at almost the same time, ford's car announced that the sal louis factory in germany would officially shut down fox in november。
Fox and matada have declared a cut-off, and a generation of classic models have come to an end. These two models, which defined the golden age of domestic cars, have now been pushed to the brink of the historic stage。
When two seemingly unrelated declarations of shutdown were issued, a signal was sent:
The pace of change in the automobile industry has never stopped, and as electricization and intellectualization continue, the model that has made traditional fuel cars proud will come to an end。
01
Magnificent horse 6
For the first time in 2002, maurada 6 was the flagship model of maada, known as atenza, or attez, in the japanese market, and is now 23 years old。
Since its birth, the car has been under a halo, while ma’ada is still under the flag of a ford car in the united states, when the sedan market was in decline, but ma’ada is still upgrading its engines and chassis, hoping to win the market with its product power beyond europe’s high-end car。
As a result, atenza became the first model of the “zoom-zoom” driving concept, and atenza 6 opened a personality gap in the age when the b-class car market was dominated by the “middleway”。
The yakoh and pasadeh were all more business styles, almost all black-coloured + peach tree decorations。
In the first place, ma6 was designed to be quite different from the dominant competitors in the market, with the homogeneity of the commercial homogeneity, and ma6 began to use a large number of arcs。
Its original a-arms forward + multiple-string behind-the-board design, with accurate reverse feedback, allowed the car to throw a line of drifting white smoke off the track, also known as the "king of the curve."。
It's also the most classic car in the family. The american magazine men's journal has commented highly that maada's creativity can't be glorified. “maada 6 is the height of design and engineering!”
Subsequently, in 2003, a car entered the chinese market, and in 2003 a car was introduced to maada 6 through technical cooperation. At that time, china co-financed a maada automotive marketing company in 2005 to complement maada 6 production。
Since the introduction of china, it has become the classic “old horse 6” in the eyes of one generation, with a global sales volume of more than 270,000。
The second generation of ma’s 6 was born in 2007 and began with the concept of “one man, one man”, which was introduced into the chinese market in 2009。
Moreover, given china’s market consumers’ unswerving enthusiasm for the first generation of horses, the first-generation car model continues to be marketed, i. E. Co-sales, while china is also the only country in the global market where ma’ada uses the two-generation model。
In 2012, the third generation of maasta atenza was officially seen as both the most brilliant and the most depressed generation of cars, and the present generation of maasta 6, with enough sales in the domestic b-class market for the year to match camery and yadav。
Subsequently, in may 2014, one of the motors introduced the third generation of maada 6 to the market and named its chinese name “atez”, and the national maada 6 model was essentially the same as the imported version of atenza, which also introduced the blue sky technology。
However, this is also the reason for the decline of “black-blue technology” and the fact that ma’ada would have thought it would continue to kill the quadrant and continue to write brilliantly, but instead became the beginning of its downward spiral。
Because the motors are too attached to self-suction, in the wave of turbo-charged motors in the other direction, the third generation of horses 6 still holds the natural gas-inhaling engine, which, in terms of power performance and market adaptability, is lagging behind the turbo-energ engines, leaving the horse 6 at a disadvantage in technological competition。
The glory of the past and the halo of mapada 6 have faded, and from sales figures, japan's local sales volume dropped from 25,000 in 2003 to 2,000 in 2022。
In august 2021, with the announcement of the withdrawal of a horse from the historical stage of chinese cars, attez also stopped sales because of the incorporation of a horse into changmada。
But even if the outcome were a pleasant one, maada 6 still had more than 3 million units on the global market, of which the chinese market contributed almost one third。
02
To live
It was no accident that mamada 6 left。
In recent years, a growing number of classic models have seen the last nodes of life in an electric wave, such as those of camaro, gtt-r and jaguar xf, all of which have been or will be discontinued in 2025。
Just recently, ford's european communications manager, finn thomason, also revealed in his e-mail that the production of the next generation of the ford flag, fox, would end in november。
And behind the backs of these cars is the brutal game between “profit” and “live”。
As one of japan's brands, ma’ada, although not as big as toyota, honda and other front-runners, was once brilliant on the domestic market. However, the greatness of the past was difficult to hide, and ma’ada’s days in the chinese market are becoming increasingly difficult。
In 2024, the cumulative sales volume of long-amarta declined from 14. 71 per cent to 75540, with the highest sales volume of cx-5 in maada, 75540, compared to 29563 in maada 3, and less than 5,000 in both cx-50 and cx-30 respectively, with little heat in the city。
Maada tried to break through a pure electric vehicle, ez-6, in cooperation with changan, and was also considered to be a pure electric successor to maada 6. This, however, stems from the model of the changan deep blue sl03 platform, which was not ideal for sales after its listing in china in october 2024。
According to publicly available data, between november 2024 and january 2025, the sales volume was 2445, 1017 and 498 respectively, and it suffered a “triple fall”. Even many netizens argue that the ez-6 is a deep blue sl03 in the coat of masheda and that the brand value added has been reduced significantly。
In the current wave of new energy cars, however, traditional car manufacturers have had to shift to new energyization, as in mainland japan, where maurada's hiroshima factory was transformed into a pure electric vehicle production。
Suv and cross-border vehicles will account for more than 70 per cent of the future product matrix in maada. “concentration of resources to build a high-profit car” is a life-or-death option, according to president madhav。
Similarly, the classic car, ford fox, which was listed in 1998, was once the hallmark of the european compact car market。
In 2010, the second-generation car sold more than 1 million cars globally, and in 2016, after the third-generation car in china, the chinese market contributed 30 per cent of its global sales, the first car in many households。
However, the fourth-generation model, introduced in 2018, turned a turning point, with a combination of three-cylinder engines and dry double-segregation transformers triggering large-scale quality complaints, which directly led to a decline in north american market share from 5. 2 per cent in 2017 to 1. 8 per cent in 2023. Even when the four-cylinder engine was subsequently replaced, consumers stopped paying for it。
As a result, ford's regional newspaper for europe showed that the fox bike profit margin was only 2. 3 per cent in 2024, well below 18. 7 per cent of the f-150 raptor, and that of ford's 2024 global net profit, f-series cards contributed 67 per cent, while the car business had lost five consecutive years。
Finally, ford ceo jim farley decided that the low-profit car model would not support the r & d inputs, leaving the “dry car”, focusing on electric pickup cards, and in his 2024 q4 conference call he said that resources would be concentrated in the future to develop electric pickups and high-end land cruisers。
Stopping the development of a car is not difficult for a car company, but balancing brand assets with transformational efficiency is something that requires serious thought。
Like popular id. 3, which took three years to fill the market gap left by the golf reduction, the electricization process was delayed by at least 18 months after general motors cut off the bolt model。
For ford and matada, continuing the electric transition is the top priority。
