(first posted 5/25/2016) Honda, Toyota and Nissan had all launched luxury divisions by the dawn of the nineties and Mazda saw no reason why they couldn’t launch one of their own, too. Like an envious younger sibling that wanted to do what the older kids were doing, Mazda excitedly prepared to launch its new luxury division, to be called Amati (Latin for “to love”). Its shareholders, like stern parents, had to tell them they couldn’t go out and play.
Of course, that admonishment came after Mazda had already spent three years and $434 million dollars researching the creation of the Amati brand, announced in 1991 and scheduled for a North American launch in 1994. Their dreams were officially declared dead on October 26, 1992 at a news conference in hometown Hiroshima.
The Amati lineup was to have consisted of 3-4 models at first. One of these would have been based on the Eunos Cosmo. This sleek coupe was the first production car to feature sequential twin turbochargers, and these were mated to a 3-rotor, 300 horsepower version of Mazda’s rotary engine.
Two of Amati’s planned sedans, the 300 and 500, were eventually launched under different nameplates. Curiously, Mazda launched the Eunos sub-brand in Australia. Despite unique badging, these Eunos models – the 500, 800 (Mazda Millenia) and 30X (MX-3) – were sold in Mazda dealerships. In European markets, the 500 and 800 were known as Xedos 6 and Xedos 9 in another half-hearted attempt at a luxury sub-brand.
The Xedos 6/Eunos 500 was a sleek, slippery four-door sedan based on the CA Platform, shared with the Mazda 626. Inline four-cylinder engines were available in some markets with more expensive variants offering Mazda’s smooth 1.8 and 2.0 V6 engines. The compact dimensions and voluptuous curves made the Xedos 6 a real looker, with some critics likening its styling to that of a mini Jaguar.
The Amati 500 would have simply been what became the Mazda Millenia (aka Eunos 800, aka Mazda Xedos 9). Interestingly, when the Millenia was eventually launched in 1995 in the US, one TV ad proclaimed, “We put the money into the car and not into a luxury division and all that overhead.” That was a little disingenuous seeing as Mazda had basically scrapped a luxury division at the 11th hour. The Millenia was available with a supercharged Miller Cycle 2.3 V6 that featured in Ward’s Best Engines list for four consecutive years. Despite its front-wheel-drive layout and more conservative styling, the Millenia was marketed as a sportier offering than the gorgeous, rear-wheel-drive 929/Sentia. Ultimately, this product overlap at the high end of Mazda’s range was short-lived: the Millenia survived until 2002 but the last model year of the 929 in North America was 1995.
The final Amati was to be called the 1000 and would have served as the brand’s flagship sedan. Here’s where things get interesting. While its styling was curvier than that of the Lexus LS, the exterior was ultimately very conservative. However, under the hood was one of the most fascinating engines of the Japanese bubble era.
The Amati 1000 was to be powered by a 3981cc, 12-cylinder engine with 3 banks of 4 cylinders in a W configuration. First previewed at the 1989 Tokyo Auto Show, the engine was limited to 280 hp and 274 ft-lb as per a Japanese gentleman’s agreement. The engine block was aluminum, the cylinder heads and oil pan magnesium and the pistons and valves made of ceramic.
Although many of these engines were developed for testing, the engine never made the jump to series production in any Mazda. A pity: although it was the definition of overkill, this engine would have beat Volkswagen’s W12 to market by a decade and given Mazda some serious bragging rights.
While Mazda’s W12 never made it to production, the 1000 did – potentially. Not much else is known about the 1000’s platform but it is believed to have been based on the Mazda 929/Sentia, which seems logical given the size although the Millenia received a mostly new platform. When Amati was scrapped, the 1000’s body appears to have been dusted off for the 1996 redesign of the 929.
The research had been done, offices had been leased in California and 82 dealerships had been signed up to sell the cars. In addition to this, a flexible assembly line was set up in Hofu to produce the new luxury cars at a cost of $500 million. But those initial costs were just the beginning of what would have been a very expensive launch: in Amati’s first few years, projected costs of $500 million would have been spent on marketing and an estimated further $330 million in development.
These were heavy-spending days at Mazda, the company having spent $1 billion a year from 1990 to 1992 just in the Japanese market in an effort to become Japan’s No. 3 car maker, behind Toyota and Nissan. They had launched 11 new models in the 18 months prior to the Hiroshima press conference, as well as doubled the number of showrooms in Japan and introduced the new ɛ̃fini, Eunos and Autozam sub-brands. This kind of profligate spending was par for the course for Japanese automakers at this time, but they all had a reality check when the Japanese stock market and property bubble burst in 1991.
Mazda’s dreams of tackling Lexus and Infiniti were dashed and, to add insult to injury, the company posted multi-million dollar losses and skidded from being Japan’s 4th largest automaker in 1992 to merely its 6th, after Mitsubishi and Suzuki. Mazda also struggled with profitability in the North American market due to its heavier reliance, vis-à-vis Nissan and Toyota, on imports. This was a problem as the US market made up over a third of Mazda’s global sales in 1996 (375,416, 2.5% of the US market). Furthermore, Mazda had invested heavily in a new production line at Hofu that was now operating at one-third capacity.
On April 12, 1996, Ford invested a further $481 million to increase its equity stake from 25% to a controlling 33.4% stake. If there was any hope left for a Mazda luxury division, it was well and truly dead by 1996. Ford also dumped Mazda’s sub-brands.
It wasn’t the first time Mazda needed help from Rich Uncle Ford as this latest cash infusion resembled one made by Ford in 1979. Mazda had over-invested in the intriguing yet fuel-inefficient rotary engine during the 1970s. Poor Mazda had been the victim of bad timing then, too: the energy crisis had arrived right as Mazda was putting its rotary engine in everything from luxury sedans to pickup trucks and busses.
Given Nissan’s perennial struggles with its Infiniti brand in the 1990s and Mazda’s financial issues, had Amati been launched it would not have been smooth sailing. The luxury car market was increasingly crowded, especially in North America, the Yen was driving up Japanese car prices and Mazda would have had to over-leverage itself to afford the marketing and development investment Amati needed. Furthermore, two of its cars would have been niche products – a W12 flagship sedan and a rotary coupe – and the other two, while nice cars, were not class leaders. Mazda wanted to play with the bigger kids but the grown-ups wouldn’t let them. It was probably for the best.
Related Reading:
Automotive History: How Donald Petersen Saved Ford In The Eighties
Automotive Histories: Dodge Goes Global – Taking a Plastic Fork to a Knife Fight
Automotive History: Mazda, Bertone And The Alfa That Wasn’t
Automotive Histories: The Cars That Never Were
The Atkinson and Miller Cycle Engines: Not Exactly What They Started Out To Be
Amati could have been great; the Eunos 500 (Capella/626 based) would have had a very good and well regarded V6 in North American 2.5 spec. Very attractive car, and would likely have ate a few ES300 sales on styling alone. The Millenia (Eunos 800) was always praised for its great build quality, and in Miller cycle form, was considered quite a good car. Better than a lot of mid-luxury sedans of the time according to Car and Driver. The aborted 1000? Who knows. I will say it was ugly…
Then we have the spectacular Cosmo based coupe. The only realistic Japanese car comparable to the Toyota Soarer of the time. Want to know what the Amati coupe was supposed to be? It surfaced under Mazda’s very short lived M2 sub-brand as a “concept” before it too was sadly aborted:
That’s very nice.
I don’t recall the coupe being part of Amati’s plans; just two or maybe three sedans
Never heard of Amati; always assumed Eunos was to Mazda as Lexus was to Toyota. This is theoretically more of a debacle than Edsel, I wonder if ‘Amati’ is used in Japanese automotive conversation in the same way.
This is a fantastic piece William. Thanks for filling in this gap in my knowledge.
Amati was intended to be exactly what Eunos was to Mazda from your perspective; upscale luxury products. Amati (an anagram of Miata, for those who aren’t in the know) was to have a separate dealer network, however. I don’t think export Eunos cars shared that distinction.
Also Stradivarius’s teacher, though something tells me they only found that out after they decided on the name.
I always thought that’s why they chose the name – I never learnt Latin in school, and probably read too much history.
Amati
a) is an anagram of “Miata”
b) means “to love” in Latin
c) taught Stradivarius how to build a violin
Would have been a great name….
Sounds like an expensive suit.
+1 on that! Thanks William
I always wondered where the efini badges fits Mazdas scheme of things. I see it glued to many different models from MPVs to MX5s in Mazda and Eunos branding, when you throw in all the JDM models their lineup becomes very confusing then there are the various Nissans Hondas and others that use Mazda bodies to fill out their lineups.
A good read. I haven’t seen anything about the Amati 12 before, always thought it was simply a V12.
I fell in love with the Xedos 6 a long time ago, and the affair isn’t over yet.
Now that’s an EXOTIC engine. Strictly speaking it’s not the same as VW’s W12. It’s more of a Ψ12.
Maybe the difficulty of marketing the Ψ12 engine killed Amati
Not all of this is news to me, but the part about Mazda building a W12 engine a decade before VW is certainly a revelation.
There was a time when many Americans thought the Japanese were on the verge of taking over the U.S. economy. The Japanese car companies in particular seemed to have all the answers and could not put a foot wrong.
Considering how small Honda was, comparatively, to Toyota and Nissan it’s amazing how they managed to leave Mazda “in their dust” in the 90s. The boldness of design that was a Mazda hallmark, was (apparently?) also their undoing.
Was there ever a time when being listed as one of ‘Ward’s Best Engines’ meant your car was assured to hit 200,000 miles without expensive engine problems? 120K kilometers in a Millenia S without spending thousands on supercharger work was considered lucky. Wards these days seems to be compiled by teenagers, which is depressing since they’re what passes for industry knowledge these days.
I remember when they were new C&D did a luxo-sedan comparo, and the Millenia was already puffing wisps of blue smoke on startup. AFAIR, they attributed it to oil pooling in the stationary vains of the blower, no biggie. Still, doesn’t inspire confidence.
Good grief. They’ve awarded any number of BMW science experiments over the last decade. Remember when they brought back the fabricated engine block of Crosley nightmares? The HPFP failures? The 335d? Wards was dazzled each time.
The Sentia also ended up in Korea as the Kia Enterprise. Something of a flop, the Hyundai Grandeur and Dynasty were the juggernauts in this class.
I always felt Mazda was punching above it’s weight class in the upper markets,
they just didn’t have that elusive something, a feel, if you will, that Toyota, Nissan and Honda were capable of producing. C&D noted in a 1995 comparo that the Millenia felt a little tinny.
First of all, Will, a stellar write-up on a piece of automotive history that’s always provoked me with thoughts of “what-if” for years.
Mazda had a strong reputation by the late-1980s/early-1990s, and most other Japanese brands were launching luxury brands, so it seemed like the perfect time to introduce its own luxury division, offering Mazda owners greater “travel up” while staying under the Mazda umbrella as well as gaining some new luxury buyers along the way.
Of course, one has to wonder if the market would have been too crowded for Amati and if its proposed vehicles would’ve been noteworthy enough to gain attention. Acura and Lexus saw early success, but Infiniti never really got its feet off the ground. And throughout their history, the sales and success of these three Japanese luxury brands has largely been dependent on several very popular models, and not a more consistent sales of most models across the board as with the German brands. I guess the question is, would Mazda have been able to keep Amati’s portfolio fresh and competitive for long-term longevity.
The Millenia/Eunos 800/Xedos 9 was a nice mid-size premium car, but it never stood out and never achieved major success. Likewise, the Eunos Cosmo and Eunos 500/Xedos 6 had a lot of appealing qualities, and the latter probably would have done well in the U.S. if sold under a premium badge. The only question is, where would Mazda have gone from there?
The Eunos Cosmo was certainly a very
I think Amati would have struggled in the US market, though for opposite reasons of Infiniti—Infiniti brought in some JDM weirdness early on, but Amati’s lineup just strikes me as a bit bland and of its time. The 300-500 (Xedos 6/9) look like generic company cars—they do have a bit more of a European flavor, but it’s more akin to a nice mainstream car like a nineties Peugeot than a BMW. I’m not surprised the Xedos 6/9 still got a sub-brand in Europe, but even had they been sold as Amatis in US I can’t see them doing any better than the Millenia—ugh that spelling—did. And I the Miller V6 would have probably been just troublesome enough to hurt the brand’s reputation—the ES250, after all, was solid and conservative, and the 500/Xedos 9/Millenia just wasn’t distinctive enough to make that eccentricity worth putting up with.
Based on what I’ve heard about the 929 I’m sure the 1000 would have been a finely-made automobile, but it lacks that halo feeling that the LS400 had, even with the smooth V12. Maybe the Cosmo would have been an effective halo, but it strikes me as being so low-volume and eccentric that it would be a niche of a niche.
All in all the cars strike me as kind of schizophrenic—in some ways boring and bland, in others interesting and innovative. Even before the crash I think the potential Amati lineup is evidence of Mazda being overstretched and not allocating its R&D resources wisely at the time—their mainstream models (the nineties 626’s come to mind) are basically an afterthought.
Didn’t anyone see the strong resemblance between Amati 1000 in the magazine spread and second generation Buick Park Avenue (1997-2005)?
http://images.cobaltgroup.com/evox/color_0640_001/2541/2541_cc0640_001_40Ux650.jpg
It peeves me the most to this day that Volkswagen would choose to call its twelve-cylinder motor W12 instead of VR12 as the design is based on combining two single-bank VR6 and sharing a common crankshaft. Each bank has six cylinders arranged in zig-zag format as to shorten the length…
Mazda’s stillborn W12 is clearly an engine with three banks in W-form.
I agree very strongly that the proposed Amati 1000 does indeed have a strong resemblance to the Buick Park Avenue and the 12-cylinder engine was certainly ambituous.
A great big “Meh!”. They all look like a partially used bar of soap, and with weird names, too. For me, “Eunos” immediately brought to mind “Eunice” the loser character played so brilliantly by Carol Burnett, not really the kind of association you want for a car.
Gone and quickly forgotten.
It’s a good thing you weren’t in Japan looking at luxury cars, then.
From personal experience having worked at a Mazda dealer from 1997-2002, most owners of Millenias loved their cars. Many felt they were totally underrated cars and would have been worthy of a luxury nameplate. Did they have their issues? Yes, some examples were worse than others. I had some customers put 100k+ miles on their cars without a glitch, while others had to use their warranty a little more than they would have liked. But all in all the Millenia was a great car, a nice driving, well-built sedan that was thousands less than the competition and offered a lot of car for the money.
That coupe is certainly a very pretty car, but of course one that probably wouldn’t have sold enough copies to warrant its existence in North America. I’m inclined to side with Mazda’s shareholders: Launching a luxury brand would have been a mistake. I still scratch my head over the seeming irrelevancy of Infiniti, and am not exactly convinced that Lexus needs to exist either, although based on sales statistics I guess I’m in the minority with that opinion.
That’s a good idea in retrospect – launching a luxury brand in NA probably wasn’t going to fly.
Noticing the Australian pictures of Mazdas – is Mazda a fairly strong brand Down Under? I saw quite a number of them on my visit to Sydney last year.
Mazda has always had something of a reputation among the techno-nerds like me. They gave you neat little OHC fours when Toyota and Datsun insisted on pushrods, plus that amazing Wankel if you could afford to run one, and always seemed to have neater styling and a fairly chuckable chassis. Sort of the sporting man’s Japanese car, back in the seventies. The RWD 323 was extremely popular – a neat, versatile body on those proven mechanicals. The 626 likewise sold well, The 929 had its ups and downs though; a high point would have been the early-eighties third-generation with that neat European-looking styling.
The FWD Mazdas were a knockout. Unlike the FWD Nissans, Mazda got it right from the start. The 323 and later 626 won car of the year, always won comparos, and the 323 became the basis for the top-selling Ford Laser. Toyota’s Corolla went through quite a few lean years, and Mazda basked in the glory of providing the Laser’s platform, mechanicals, and basic body. Likewise when the new 626 appeared; it too had a Ford derivative, the Telstar. Quite popular at first, though not to the degree the Laser was, Mazda had come up with another hit – for Ford.
Then Mazda came up with its own distinct bodystyles for the 323 in the Astina hatch and later a sedan as well. Beautiful little cars, sometimes with a small V6 (Wow – try getting that from Toyota or Nissan!) they were great halo cars for the brand and made all the other small cars seem so bland and boring. I always wanted one, and they have something of a cult following today. Mazda seemed to be going from strength to strength, and seemed incapable of making a wrong move.
But the monetary tap got turned off when the Japanese economy went bung, as we’ve seen in the excellent article above. Mazdas seemed to get dumbed down. The neat Astina bodies disappeared and the 323 looked drab, just like the Laser with different badges. Ford stopped making the Laser locally due to costs; it bumbled its way down the sales charts, and Ford reverted to being ‘the Falcon company’. The 626 went from being a class leader to an alternative, larger body on the 323 platform – boring.
But then came the zoom-zoom era, when Mazda rose again – with the 3 going from strength to strength, to the point where it’s often Australia’s top-selling car.
The only glitch in Fordizing Mazdas came when Ford restyled this the Laser cabriolet it took too long and the result was less than the original they should have left it alone.
Is that a NZ model Bryce?
Thanks for the info, Old Pete.
I drove a locally-built Ford Laser in Taiwan back in the late 1980s (I think it corresponds to the KB generation in Australia). Tough, reliable, a bit more solid than the competing Nissan model though it consumed a bit more fuel.
Glad to hear that Mazda is back. Here in the USA, too, Mazda is capitalizing on its more sporting characteristics. The Mazda6 is one of the few cars in its class that can be fitted with a manual transmission!
This was a good write up on a division that I had only heard of back in the 90s. I like the styling of the two coupes. It’s very clean with a low belt line. We saw a treatment like that with the Lexus SC coupe. That W twelve motor though amazing, is the definition of overkill! I don’t think that the Amati as a brand would have been very successful, as was mentioned in another comment, Infiniti really hasn’t enjoyed the kind of success that their parent company imagined. Hyundai has been trying to distance their Genesis offerings from their main line with distinctive badges, although the styling ties them to the line. It’s funny now how the American auto makers have decided it is better to load content on their main brands. Ford in particular with their “Platinum” and “King Ranch” trim levels. I see lots of people happy to drive these gussied up versions. Options are all about the profit margin!
Actually looks like a slant-w-12. Interesting engine
After much thought, and the odd glass of wine, I am less sure about this W12 motor. It is very compact, but an expensive high-end car needs a long bonnet/hood – it does not need a compact engine. The exhaust manifold for the centre bank of cylinders is compromised, and of necessity the included valve-angle of the cylinder heads is less than ideal.
Bring back the straight-8 !
An absolutely fascinating article, William – the month’s most riveting reading. As an avid reader of Wheels back then I knew of the plans for the Amati division, and the big car, but had never heard of the W12 engine before. Knowing Mazda’s technology high, it doesn’t surprise me they’d come up with something like this.
This also helps explain why the last-generation 929/Sentia looked so dull, if that style was intended to be a big Lexus competitor. I’d always felt there was a massive and disappointing disconnect between its styling and that of its predecessor.
Great article, I´ve been interested in the Amati division for some time but information on the internet isn´t abundant. Even I didn´t know that the 1000´s V12 engine was really a W12.
The 500/ Xedos 6 is a gorgeous car, every now and then I see one on the street and arguably is a prettier car than its main rival (in Europe) the BMW 3 Series E36, although contemporary magazines road tests said it was an inferior drive to the BMW. It could have sold well in U.S.
The Millenia/800/Xedos 9 has heavier looks, it isn´t as well balanced as the Xedos 6.
At the end the Amati division seems another example of the madness that seems to aflict Mazda periodically: the Wankel engined cars, the Cosmo coupés, the MX3/5/6 (only the MX5 was a real success), the 1994 323F/ Lantis (a five door, hard top “family car”)…
Eunos Cosmos are working their way into the US now under the 25 year rule. The prices are pretty reasonable. To me it’s a Japanese interpretation of a Lincoln Mark VIII with a badass rotary engine. As long as anyone who knows how to wrench on RX7’s can keep it running, I could be tempted to consider one.
A local importer here in Richmond who specializes in 80’s/90’s JDM cars has brought in at least one Cosmo of that generation. I keep hoping I’ll see it in the metal somewhere though I haven’t a clue if it was sold locally. They’re responsible for a number of interesting cars I see periodically around town (quite a few R32 Skylines and at least one Cefiro, just naming the ones I’ve laid eyes on.)
Ceramic pistons and valves? Seriously? I know development of ceramic materials has made great srtides in the last few decades, but could the explosive environment of a reciprocating engine’s combustion chamber be conditions they could endure for any length of time?
My late 1990s boss drove a Xedos 9, but it was always referred to as “Bill’s Mazda”. I never drove it, but as something to ride in it was fine, with an attractive if not very exciting interior in decent materials. Made quite a nice noise too.
As a plan to create another brand , it failed, and from a European position you have to suspect that the volume was not there to create another dealer network, so the cars were sold alongside Mazdas. OK, so Audi were alongside VW then, but not now, and th perception has shifted. Likewise , Lexus are sold separately from Toyota.
Fascinating piece. I had no idea Mazda was developing a W12 engine, and it certainly would have been interesting had that gone into production. Would it have put Japanese manufacturers in line with Rolls Royce and Bentley (of course this would have been long before BMW and VW bought those companies)? Also, did Mazda keep the Efini, Eunos and Autozam lines in production in Japan after that experiment failed?
Some clarification – the W12 never made it much past the drawing board and a patent application. The Amati 1000/Pegasus was, as production drew near, going to be powered by a 4.0L V12 based on the K-series V6. In the US market, this engine was expected to make about 350 hp.
This.
Nice writeup of a brand that I remember swirling around as a “coming attraction” then abruptly being cancelled. Probably for the better given the economic issues and the competition in that space also, though we did eventually get the Millenia (quite a nice car in ‘S’ trim). I do wonder, though, if the 500/Xedos 6 was stylistically differentiated far enough from the concurrent 626. The details are more adventurous, and looking at them side by side it’s clear that they’re very different sheetmetal, but there is a strong enough resemblance to the also-attractive 626 that I think the majority of non-“car people” might have failed to tell one from the other. Were there dynamic/performance differences, I wonder?
Great job William! I remember Amati surprisingly being aborted (but now it makes sense) as well as the sheer beauty when I first saw a Millenia. Something about that droopy back quarter that the J30 couldn’t pull off.
Friends ultimately bought a 929 and a Millenia; they loved them both but didn’t enjoy the Lexus-level repair expenses. I think they kept each of the two around 8-10 years.
Excellent writeup! It describes the perplexing and confusing products offered from a marketing point of view. I just love the “name game” car makers go through, sometimes with success (eg. Cadillac Escalade), and sometimes not (eg. Lincoln Aviator). By the way, up here in the Great White North (Canada that is, and, no, we don’t all live in igloos!), our ultimate luxury Mazda was called the “929 Serenia”. I thought this was a fabulous name!
“Mazda saw no reason why they couldn’t launch one of their own…”
Except for IIRC, the comment from William Jeannes: “Mazda: too big to be small, too small to be big.”
The only thing I’d like to add to a superb overview is that it’s important to understand what Mazda was trying to do with the JDM Eunos and Efini sub-brands, viz., attempting to match Toyota (and to a lesser extent Nissan) on its own terms.
In Japan, Toyota had a huge advantage in dealer penetration, which for various contractual reasons was divided up into (at that point) five different sales channels, each selling a couple of unique products along with some reskinned, rebadged versions of shared models (e.g., Corolla/Sprinter, Camry/Vista, Mark II/Chaser/Cresta). It was a lot of the same kind of stuff GM has been pilloried for doing in the U.S., but usually without the pretense of separate brand identification. Toyota got a LOT of mileage out of this strategy, and it’s a big part of why they were the dominant JDM player.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the second-tier automakers, including both Honda and Mazda, tried to catch up by doing the same thing and basically fell on their faces in the process. (Honda had had a second channel since the late ’70s, but they tried adding two more.) I think it was a combination of bad timing, some misfired execution, and just a lack of momentum compared to the Toyota channels; Toyota’s most recent addition had been in 1980, so they had an established niche already. I also suspect Honda and Mazda couldn’t do the model variations quite as cheaply as Toyota could.
So, I don’t think the Efini- and Eunos-badged versions of models like the Capella/626 were originally designed with the expectation that their resemblance would be unrecognizable, since in Japan, they weren’t going to share dealer space. Obviously, that didn’t translate outside the home market, which became a major handicap. Toyota has been able to sell both the ES and the Camry in the U.S. in part because they’re sold separately — it would be harder to do that if the ES were in the same showrooms.
Well shucks, thanks Aaron! I know I’ve written a nice and thorough article when Mr. Ate Up With Motor calls it thorough!
By the way, you just inadvertently sent me on a Wikipedia rabbithole. I didn’t know about the Honda Clio/Honda Verno/Honda Primo dealer networks and now I’m having a read…
Good old Sandgate swimming pool.
Maintaining a premium division is not cheap. Honda, Toyota, & Nissan were early to the party. It’s true; Cadillac was in a state of confusion at this time and went to the wrong address. However, I don’t think Mazda would have had the capital to duke it out via the Amati brand.
Also, Kia & Hyundai would eventually eat up the bread & butter of the Mazda portfolio diminishing the economy of scale so necessary in the auto business.
In hindsight, better it did not happen.
Both Mazda Lantis and Xedos 6 are the most gorgeous cars of that time, it’s a shame Ford didn’t followed that design style in the Mondeo, Contour, Escort and Taurus. The Mondeo / Contour look like a sausage over wheels and the others are too rounded to be attractive.
It’s been revealed recently the engine in the Amati 1000 was indeed a V12, created by pairing up two K-series V6s end-to-end and using the rotating assemblies of the K-series engine with even the valve train being lifted from the V6.
https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/mazda-forgotten-v12-super-sedan
Mazda post-Amati sought to find a use for their stillborn V12, after Jaguar refused their suggestion of using their engines to replace their old V12 they looked at a number of ideas including the 1994 Project A007 that used parts from the RX7.