The Ford Motor Company is responsible and the culprit behind the success and prestige that the Mazda Tribute has at present. Despite the fact that 2006 would be the last year that this vehicle would be manufactured, sales of this vehicle has not been greatly affected. The life story of the Mazda Tribute had started back in the year 2001. It had taken the spot and niche that the Mazda Navajo left vacant when its production was entirely halted. However, this time around, when the Mazda Tribute is not manufactured anymore, its spot would be taken by the upcoming Mazda CX 7.

The Mazda Tribute has been built and mounted on the FF CD2 platform of the Ford Motor Company. This same platform has been used by the previous front wheel drive Mazda 626 vehicle. It has been designed as a compact crossover sport utility vehicle and this vehicle holds four doors. It is related to the Ford Escape and the Mercury Mariner. It has been said that its competition in the automobile market include the Jeep Liberty, the Toyota RAV4, the Hyundai Tucson, and the Honda CR-V.

During its introduction, the Mazda Tribute was unveiled to have been equipped with either a 2.0 L Mazda engine with four cylinders or the Ford Duratec 3.0 L V6 engine. However, if you do travel to Europe, you would find out that the Mazda Tribute is currently being sold as the Ford Maverick. And this vehicle was equipped with the 2.0 L Ford Zetec engine and had a manual transmission system as part of it. However, another choice for the engine was a 3.0 L Duratec engine with an automatic transmission system.

Mazda claims that the Mazda Tribute is the right vehicle not only for on road driving but also for off road traversing. Whatever the kind of terrain that there could be, the Mazda Tribute could definitely handle them. The engine is guaranteed to be lightweight yet provides enough and good power. Aside from power, the Mazda Tribute actually has been made available with various choices. As per the interior, interested parties could choose between cloth and leather material for the seats and the color choices for these materials are Dark Flint and Medium Pebble. The exterior color choices, on the other hand, comprise of Blazing Copper, Stormfront Gray, Classic White, Dark Titanium, Mystic Black, Pebble Ash, Platinum, Redfire, and Lapis Blue.