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Mazda6 Parade Car Debuts in Japan, Looks Like the Convertible We Never Got

The Mazda6 is one of the coolest midsize sedans ever to come out of Japan. This generation is particularly sexy, but the automaker has adamantly refused to build any more body styles... except a few roofless cars they made for parades back home.
Mazda6 Parade Car Debuts in Japan, Looks Like the Convertible We Never Got 14 photos
Photo: Mazda
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The footage we got off the web suggests the RX-8 is an older show car, but you never known. Anyway, a couple of Mazda6 sedans were converted just in time for last year's Hiroshima Toyo Carp Central League championship parade. That took place in November, and it seems to be all about baseball, with tens of thousands of spectators gathered.

Since then, the cars have also been used in other parades in Miyazaki and Okinawa, including by the local fire department.

Naturally, the automaker is proud of its creations and posted some details on its web blog. For example, the cars come with a special roll hoop or bar with a "dip" at the front which is designed so that the person standing up can grasp it with the first joints of his fingers.

This thing will never be driven at a speed where serious accidents can happen. So they've completely redesigned the seating configuration. The people in the back are supposed to be seen, even when they are sitting down, so the engineers raised the floor by 20 centimeters and the lovely white leather seats by 40 centimeters compared to standard. This also created room for Mazda to install underfloor supports.

The project was completed by a limited number of people in just six months. Experts from all Mazda strategic engineering divisions began planning for the roofless Atenza on February 24th, 2015. Some of the people who were involved volunteer to work on the project during their time off because it was such a source of pride for the Hiroshima region.

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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