MAZDA Museum — Local services in Hiroshima

A fantastic experience! Absolutely loved my visit. The staff were extremely friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and my guide spoke great English (I was on an English tour). The rest of the museum staff were also very friendly and helpful (and very tolerant of my poor Japanese) And it's free! Just book ahead, which is a very easy process and you would be able to go thru with it even if you don't speak a word of Japanese. Closer to the tour date, they also send you a reminder. The guided tour starts at the Mazda HQ lobby where visitors can have a look and even jump in and around some of the current production Mazda models until all visitors are ready to go. First, everyone gets on the bus then while on the way to the museum and the assembly lines, the guide explains as passing along buildings, plants and any other places of note in the Mazda factory complex, this bus trip takes a few minutes. The number of exhibits was small but it had all the iconic Mazda vehicles on display and not like some museums, the cars were not behind velvet ropes or placed side by side or back to back so one can get right up close (but still not allowed to touch - which is fair enough). The only gripe was a bonnet (or a hood) was closed - with the bonnet closed, the cars are photogenic (as everyone wants to take pictures and good pictures) but for car enthusiasts, what lies under the bonnet is the exciting part (I'm only speaking for myself). The second half of the tour goes thru the part of factory line (over the mezzanine level) with the assembly processes explained. Very easy and quick access from central Hiroshima. Some reviewers complained they couldn't get in because prior booking is required. I find that a puerile tantrum on their lack of preparation and plan. If you rock up to a restaurant with no booking, don't know their opening hours then you don't get a seat because it's either full or closed, whose fault would that be? Also, there are both Japanese and English speaking tours, in my case both ran more or less concurrently, sharing the same tour bus taking from the meeting point to the museum/factory site. It is true that the museum shop merchandises were a bit small in range and probably not quite what flat peak brrrrap brrrrap boys would be after but this is not that kind of place. I thoroughly recommend this place and I would be back on my next visit to Hiroshima - I've been to a few car museums and this place is right up there and everything is a breeze, from booking to getting to place and the tour...

We visited the Mazda Museum in Hiroshima recently and were thrilled with this free tour. The tour can be arranged online at the Madza website and they respond very quickly confirming date and time.

We arrived by train and walked to the headquarters from which the tour departs. Upon entering the reception area, the friendly tour guide greeted us, confirmed our attendance and asked us to wear the Madza tour lanyard. We were advised that free lockers were at available to leave our belongings. We were allowed to walk around the show room, photograph the cars, open and sit in the cars!

At the allotted time, all tour participants boarded a bus to take us across the huge Madza site to the Museum. Along the journey, the English speaking tour guide pointed out various facilities including their own hospital, Powerplant, port, fire station and worker dormitories.

The museum foyer contains Mazda’s current range of cars and a very small gift shop. The only negative in the whole experience was the gift shop. The gift shop contains a very limited and highly priced items. The only cheap trinket was a plastic key ring.

The tour was guided to the second floor where a history lesson on how Madza started began. The range of cars is extensive and impressive, including family vehicles and racing cars. Instagram worthy!

The unexpected part of this tour was the viewing of the manufacturing line from the gantry. What a thrill seeing the moving assembly line, with robots and workers manufacturing multiple Madza models.

Upon returning to the museum, we were escorted to vehicle safety, modelling, design and shown their new concept cars.

For a car enthusiast, it was a fantastic tour of the museum, the manufacturing plant and Mazda’s site. Highly recommended if...

I am a Mazda fan and I planned my trip to Kyushu really because of the Mazda museum in Hiroshima. The tour is a guided tour, the guide would speak decent English and we could understand. The museum has 10 zones which cover the origin of Mazda to the future of the company. There's some interesting information which I didn't know about before (for example, during WWII times the factory was seized by the military government, but Mazda insisted to continue to make civilian tricycles because 'it enhances the life of the people')

The tour also includes a factory tour which was interesting. The whole tour is 2 hours long.

It is 4 stars and not 5 for a few reasons :

The tour did not go into the specifics of any iconic vehicle in Mazda's history. There are a few vehicles which as Mazda fans really want to hear more about, such as the RX7, the MX5 Miata, the philosophy and insistence behind the rotary engine etc. The tour didn't really feed to the passion of Mazda fans in these iconic vehicles.

The selection in the museum gift shop is extremely scarse. As fans having travelled from Canada to Hiroshima we were happy to open up the wallet for memorable souvenirs. But there's very few items available for sale. In fact the selection is comparable to my local Mazda dealerships

All in all we were happy we planned our kyushu trip around the mazda museum. The experience was great but I don't think we'll...