As far as basic transportation goes, it doesn’t get much more frill-free than today’s Nice Price or No Dice Mazda. Could its price tag prove equally parsimonious?
What would you rather bang your head to live: Metallica or a Metallica tribute band? Yeah, I know the tribute band will probably have a better drummer, but the real deal is still much more likely to be the more memorable experience. Ticket prices would be vastly different, too, with the tribute band being the way-cheaper option. At $16,000, yesterday’s 1974 Ford Capri—itself a tribute to the legendary RS2600 of the 1970s—was also a cheaper option to buying the real deal. Even if you could find one. Despite the differential, that price still didn’t sit well with the majority of you, however. Perhaps the RS Capri just isn’t sufficiently well-known here in the U.S. Or maybe the mods made to the interior to accommodate the tribute’s five-speed put you off. Off it was, ultimately, with the result being a 64% No Dice loss.
Familia
If yesterday’s Capri wasn’t all that well-known, it could, at the very least, be acknowledged as something special. I mean, how many cars have their hoods painted black? That many? Huh. In contrast, today’s 2000 Mazda Protege DX is about as mundane as a car as you could imagine. Its common shape and size—mirrored in any number of competing Japanese and Korean cars—makes it feel immediately generic. One might go as far as to describe it as familiar. That’s pretty close to what Mazda called it over multiple generations, as outside of the U.S., this small sedan, among other variations, was marketed as the Familia.
Here in the States, the small Mazda went by a number of nameplates over the course of its thirty-some-year run. Those included the rotary-engined R100, the GLC (Great Little Car), and 323 badged models. The Protege was the last of the Familia line, replaced in the early Aughts by the Mazda 3 hatch and sedan.
The basic facts
This gold over beige cloth Protege has a lot to offer, considering how little it actually has to work with. This is a simple car with plastic covers for the steel wheels, manual adjusters for the seats, and not even a tach in the dash. It even has manual-crank windows and locks that require all doors to be checked before leaving the car on its own.
There are some nods to civility, though. The stereo gets both AM and FM bands and has a CD player for when those wear out their welcome. The car also has AirCon, which the seller says blows appreciably cold.
Even the styling is simple, although it’s putting on airs with the gold paint. The wheel covers do look to be aftermarket, sourced from the Walmart auto aisle, but appear un-marred. On a car of this age, it’s surprising to find that the paint looks to be in great shape, suffering only some scrapes on the front bumper to mare the overall aesthetic. Aside from a bold bit of trim atop the grille and a couple of DX badges, there’s no chrome on the car whatsoever to detract from the parsimonious design ethic.
Sticking it to the shifts
Behind that grille sits a 105-horsepower 1.6-liter four-cylinder, which the seller says is good for a laudable, if not stellar, 31 miles to the gallon. A typo in the ad claims the transmission to be a manual six-speed, but five cogs is all these cheap-seat cars ever got. The drivetrain has motivated the Mazda to a mere 89,191 miles, and according to the ad, it continues to be in “perfect running condition.” Regardless of that assertion, the miles, and more importantly, the age, mean that the car should be checked over for regular service items like a brake fluid flush and timing belt change. The ad says nothing about past services but does note that the car is accident-free and suffers no rust anywhere.
It also claims the car comes with a Protege suitcase, whatever that might mean, plus a steering wheel lock since these are prime theft candidates owing to their rarity and people constantly confusing them with their own Corollas and Sentras.
A sensible deal?
The question, of course, is whether this Protege’s $3,600 asking price makes it a steal. As far as its niche in the world goes, this Mazda comes across as a sensible and likely frugal car for anyone whose needs don’t extend much beyond getting from point A to point B. It is, however, an old car with few of the modern safety or convenience features (who cranks their own windows these days?) of more modern cars.
That all being said, there’s a certain charm in a simple car, and these days, there are fewer and fewer around to offer that charm. This clean-title Mazda has that in spades and should have plenty more miles in its future. Could that realistically be worth the $3,600 investment? Or is this car’s simple nature simply its downfall?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Facebook Marketplace out of Palm Coast, Florida, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Eric Weigand for the hookup!
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