Mazda Autozam AZ-1
JDM · Mazda
Autozam AZ-1: Mazda's Gullwing Kei Car
The Autozam AZ-1 is a two-seat kei sports car that Mazda sold in Japan under its Autozam brand in the early 1990s. It has a turbocharged 657 cc Suzuki engine behind the seats, rear-wheel drive, and gullwing doors.
The idea started at Suzuki. Its mid-engine RS/1 prototype dates to 1985, and the RS/3 followed at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show before Suzuki dropped the project to focus on the roadster that became the Cappuccino. Mazda's design team, led by Toshihiko Hirai, who was also responsible for the MX-5, took it over. At the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show Mazda showed three versions called the AZ-550, built around the kei car rules of the time, which capped engines at 550 cc. The public liked the Group C racer-inspired Type C best, but executives picked the red Type A as the most commercial. It lost its pop-up headlights for production, for structural rigidity.
Engineers switched the internal frame to steel for more stiffness, and much of the development happened in the United Kingdom, including testing at Lotus's Millbrook Proving Ground, even though the car was never meant for sale outside Japan. The production car kept its gullwing doors and used the same turbocharged 657 cc engine as the Suzuki Alto, making 64 PS at 6,500 rpm and 85 N·m (63 lb-ft) at 4,000 rpm, with top speed electronically limited to 140 km/h (87 mph). A Mazdaspeed A-spec version added a body kit, sports suspension, and a mechanical LSD. Suzuki sold its own version, the Cara, with fog lamps added.
The timing was bad. The AZ-1 arrived as Japan's recession set in, priced at ¥1.498 million, above the Honda Beat at ¥1.388 million and the Suzuki Cappuccino at ¥1.458 million, and buyers found it too expensive and too cramped for a kei car. It missed its target of 800 sales a month. Mazda built 4,392, plus 531 Suzuki Caras, compared with 28,010 Cappuccinos and 33,600 Beats.
