Mazda Motor Corp. on Monday named James O’Sullivan president and CEO of Mazda North American Operations, effective April 1. O’Sullivan replaces Charlie Hughes, who was fired in February after clashing for months, say insiders, with Mazda CEO Louis Booth. O’Sullivan, 50, is a 27-year veteran of Ford. He joined Ford Motor Co. in 1976 and most recently was franchise and business development manager for the Lincoln Mercury division. Prior to that position, he was Lincoln brand manager, and specifically launched the LS. In his new role, O’Sullivan must take Mazda to a new level of sales. The Mazda6, which was launched last December, has received critical praise, but competes in a tough category against a brand new Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Mitsubishi Galant. The Mazda6 launch has been glitchy as demand has outstripped Mazda’s supply of manual transmission models and V-6s. Mazda launches an all-new RX-8 this year, and a Protégé replacement early next year. Mazda says it hopes to sell 300,000 vehicles in North America in 2003. —Jim Burt

they wont sell that many of them in the United States....i dont want to c lots of RX8 driving everywhere but if it does then its going to be better for us RX8 buyers because it's going to cost us less money to maintain it....

i believe they mean 300,000 vehicles in total, not just rx-8s.

RX8 going to be 18,000 to 25,000 so anything in between is probably going to be brought over.