Mazda loses two new cars to pedantic border guards

October 11, 2013 by Alastair Sloane

Government officials in landlocked Belarus are the first in the world to get hold of the new Mazda3.

But there was nothing official about the deal – boarder guards in the former Soviet country confiscated the two pre-production models during a media event.

And Mazda HQ in Japan doesn’t know if it will get them back.

The two vehicles were among eight being driven by a group of motoring journalists from Mazda’s base in Hiroshima to last month’s Frankfurt motor show.

The 15,000km journey, designed to test the durability of the new model, stretched across Russia through Belarus and Poland and into Germany.

But the Belarus border patrol seized two of the cars as the group attempted to cross into Poland. It is understood officials had problems with paperwork for the two.

A Mazda spokesman said the carmaker didn’t know when – or if – it would get them back.

Mazda has done the cross-continent event twice – in 1977 with two Mazda 323s and in 1990 with six Mazda 626s.

French carmaker Renault has won the 2025 European Car of the Year award with the all-electric R5 supermini (pictured). It’s the brand’s second win in a row, following the new Scenic’s gong in 2024. The R5 led the vote count from start to finish from the 60 jurors in 23 countries. It received 353 points, beating the Kia EV3 (291 points) and the Citroen C3/e in third place with 215 points. It’s Renault’s eighth win in the 62-year history of the Coty award. The R5 goes on sale in the UK this month. There are two main drivetrains: a 90kW motor/40kWh battery model with a 300km range, and a 112kW/52kWh example with a 400km range. The R5 starts in price at £22.995, or $NZ50,000.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.

Mazda loses two new cars to pedantic border guards

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