Junkyard Find: 1995 Mazda MX-6 LS (2024)

Published: October 7th, 2024

The Mazda-Ford partnership brought us quite a few Familia-based cars during the 1990s, including the post-1990 Escort and 1991-1994 Mercury Capri. The chassis of the bigger Mazda Capella spawned some interesting US-market offspring as well, and we've got one of them for today's Junkyard Find.

This is a late second-generation MX-6, sporting some not-so-fast but reasonably furious early-21st-century customization touches and now residing in a Denver-area junkyard.

When the second generation of the front-wheel-drive Capella was born, it debuted in North America as the 1988 Mazda 626.

The 626 had been available here in coupe form prior to the 1988 model year, but the two-door version was given the MX-6 name while the 626 became a sedan-only model.

Ford had been planning to replace the Mustang with a coupe based on the 626 platform, but the idea of a Mustang on a Japanese front-wheel-drive platform proved intolerable to red-blooded American Ford owners and the car hit showrooms with Probe badges.

The North American 626, MX-6 and Probe were the same cars beneath their skins for the 1988 through 1997 model years.

This one is an LS, which means it got V6 power, air conditioning, alloy wheels, disc brakes all the way around and so on.

The MSRP for the MX-6 LS in its third-to-last model year was $21,648, or about $45,341 in 2024 dollars.

Meanwhile, a similarly equipped 1995 Ford Probe GT listed at $20,040 ($41,973 after inflation). These Mazda badges added a lot to the price.

Both the Probe and the MX-6 were built at the AutoAlliance plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. After years of souring Ford-Mazda relations, Ford took over the plant in 2012.

The V6 is the same 2.5-liter DOHC engine that went into the more upscale 626s, rated at 164 horsepower and 160 pound-feet.

As a veteran of more 24 Hours of Lemons races than any other human on the planet (168 total events, though California racer Anton Lovett should pass me during 2025) I can say that— given equally skilled drivers in both cars— the V6-powered MX-6/Probe is a quicker car on a road course than the V8-powered Fox/SN95 Mustang it was supposed to replace. Unfortunately, the Mazda V6 tends to be a bit less reliable than the Ford Windsor and way more explodey than the Ford Modular 4.6 under endurance-race abuse.

This car has the base five-speed manual, so it would have been respectably fast and fun to drive for its time.

I couldn't find the brand of this aftermarket hood scoop, but it's not as cool as the ones offered by J.C. Whitney during the early 1970s.

The decklid wing, however, is a factory unit and appears to be the same as the one that went onto the second-generation Probe. When you live your life a quarter-mile at a time, you need all the downforce you can get (especially on the rear wheels in a front-wheel-drive car).

These are not the factory 1995 MX-6 LS wheels, but they sure look familiar (the fact that each wheel is held on by a single lugnut and has an oversize hub hole suggests that U-Pull-&-Pay just grabbed a set of readily available 5x114.3 wheels from a pile and threw them on in order to move the car around the storage lot).

The aftermarket tape stripes appear to have been competently installed.

The last year for the MX-6 was 1997, after which it was replaced by, well, nothing. If you were an American car shopper searching for a new two-door Mazda for 1998, your only choice was to get a Miata.

However, Mazda renewed the MX-6 trademark in 2018, so perhaps we'll see the name revived on what we must assume will be a crypto-sporty crossover in the future.

{ "id": "9589861", "alt": "", "title": "", "video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/97vftkG_HuQ", "youtube_video_id": "97vftkG_HuQ" }

{ "width": 634, "height": 357, "showRelated": true }

This generation of MX-6 LS was sold as the MX-6 Mystère north of the border.

{ "id": "9589864", "alt": "", "title": "", "video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/4F34EjlOW_A", "youtube_video_id": "4F34EjlOW_A" }

{ "width": 634, "height": 357, "showRelated": true }

The combination of Italian and English in this JDM commercial makes the MX-6 seem so… worldly.

{ "id": "9589867", "alt": "", "title": "", "video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/VwYGgGflsyg", "youtube_video_id": "VwYGgGflsyg" }

{ "width": 634, "height": 357, "showRelated": true }

Why get a toy Porsche when you can get a real MX-6 in your Australian toy store?