Autozam AZ-1 Historical Information (AZ-550 Sports)

After the unveiling of these prototypes at the 1989 Tokyo Auto Show, Mazda
executives decided to press forward with production of the car seeing it was
well received by the attending public and automotive press. Although Type C
was the best received of the three, the executives making an executive
decision usually does not always choose the most popular option available.
After all, the decisions are still business decisions and those types of decisions
require considering what would be best for mass market for best sales.
They chose Type A as they believed it was the most commercially
accepted version by the public. Type A was essentially ready to go to production
as is, some details were changed to interior and exterior most notably changing
the pop-up headlights to fixed lights.

The car’s development work was carried out by Hawtal Whiting in the United Kingdom. The initial monocoque frame was originally made of aluminum and they decided to switch to steel for production. From the decision point of choosing Type A, it took 3 years to get the car into production.

After many directors being cycled through the project; Toshihiko Hirai, the head of Mazda’s roadster program was appointed as the new head of the AZ-550/AZ-1 project. He was the third and final project leader. His success at overseeing the entire development, production, and sale of what is now known as the beloved Miata made him the man to try to put the AZ-1 out to market.
With the project under Toshihiko Hirai, his first actions were to modify the car’s current existence. He had the design team drop the pop up headlights on his first day! There were discussions of making this vehicle a 2 seater (2+2). The keijidosha (kei car) regulations had changed since the start of development to allow for an additional 10cm in length and 110cc of displacement (1990), the engineers and designers presumably wanted to take advantage of this. Hirai nixed this idea too. Read more about Toshihiko Hirai’s involvement with this project in his interview article from EnthuCar found here: Interview File

Headlight concepts to replace the pop-up headlights: Toshihiko Hirai (平井 敏彦) removed them because the short AZ550 nose meant that the headlights were inside the bumper area, so the whole headlight unit would need to be replaced in a low-speed impact.

He's quoted as saying "I can't put such a burden on the customer".

A rollover test of the AZ-1. Obviously gullwing doors work best if the car is on its wheels, so as part of vehicle type approval, Mazda had to prove that a driver wouldn't be trapped inside the car if the car rolled over.

The prototype was called the AZ-550 due to existing kei car regulations of the time. During the development here they were working under the conditions of the existing keijidosha (kei car) regulations of Jan 1st, 1976 which states that a vehicle can have a maximum length of 3.2 m, maximum width of 1.4m and maximum engine displacement of 550cc, hence the 550 in the name AZ-550.

However by the time the car became ready for production in 1992, the Japanese government has since modified the law that states the vehicle can have a maximum length of 3.3m, maximum width of 1.4m and maximum displacement of 660cc. Mazda would then up the available displacement to 660cc to meet regulations. The Suzuki F6A motor was chosen and sourced for this task after Suzuki had bored out their F5B from 547cc to create the F6A 657cc due to the change in regulation allowing up to 660cc.

Mazda did not build the AZ-1 themselves either, they had a company named Kurata Co Ltd. (now known as KeyLex) also based in Hiroshima contracted to produce this vehicle. Kurata was capable of producing these at a rate of 1000 vehicles per month at standard hours but unfortunately never used nor needed it. Production started and the first AZ-1 rolled off the line on August 8th, 1992. The AZ-1’s “birthday” is October 5th because that was when the first AZ-1s were delivered.

Kurata went on to produce 4409 cars (President of Kurata Interview, Autozam AZ-1 and Suzuki Cara combined) for Mazda. When production ended about a year later in June 1993, roughly half the cars produced were still sitting at dealer lots unsold. This car was late to the party and Japan’s bubble economy has burst. Under these conditions, it did not sell very well and Mazda got to work trying to push the remaining vehicles out for sale with special edition models that were no more than aesthetic body kit changes. M2 Incorporated made special panels for their model the M2 1015. Mazda also put out Mazdaspeed cars with new upgrades to entice more buyers.

The Mazdaspeed parts were dealer installed options. M2 made parts to make a small batch of their “genuine” M2 1015s however eventually the parts were simply sold as parts without the car and anybody could have bought the parts to “convert” their AZ-1 to a M2 1015 car. None of them had any special VIN numbers to correlate with which was which. The only way to tell is actually knowing what year each particular option was available so only obviously if it came on an earlier car none of it was correct. The Suzuki Cara was launched January 27, 1993 shortly after the Autozam AZ-1 in September 24th 1992. Eventually all the cars were sold by 1995 as no more sales data show any AZ-1 or Cara in 1996.

1993 Tokyo Motor Show

M2 Incorporated made a concept with the AZ-1 as like an “off road/rally” model the M2 1014.