In the past, Mazda had thought of joining the other Japanese manufacturers in developing a luxury line of vehicles such as Toyota did with the Lexus and Nissan with the Infiniti. Mazda's make would have been called Amati. But it never got off the ground. Nonetheless, Mazda still developed a luxury sedan and called it Millenia. It thus replaced the aging 929 that was rear-wheel driven.
The Millenia S is a front-wheel-drive car that offers good (but not exciting) acceleration and comfortable passing power even though the engine is not one of those huge V8's. The interior is well appointed and, naturally, well finished. On the minus side, I'd say that the little Miller mill gets to be noisy under many circumstances which is not what typical luxury car buyers want (though I liked the whining sound of the supercharger under acceleration or effort). The only transmission available is a four-speed automatic while some of its competition already has five-speed auto trannies. Partly based on the 626 platforms, the Millenia S offers the same type of good road handling and a certain stable stance. My tester was equipped with Pirelli winter tires that helped it work well on snowy and icy roads. Though the weather did not permit much in terms of performance driving, I still felt the Millenia S was very comfortable at high speeds on the highways.