Those of you in the Seattle area with $11,000 to burn may be wise to check out this listing because, after all, when are you going to see another Eunos Cosmo for sale? This flagship Mazda personal luxury coupe is one of the most exclusive and alluring Mazdas ever made, from its sumptuous, high-tech interior to the twin-turbocharged rotary engine under the hood.
Being over 25 years old, this Cosmo was eligible for import to the US and is registered and insured. It’s a rather left-field choice for a Japanese import, so much so that I’ve still yet to see one here in Australia even as we are teeming with Skylines and Silvias imported from Japan. I know what I’d rather have, though.
The Cosmo was designed for the richest Japanese, buyers who might have ordinarily gravitated towards a Toyota Soarer. It was one of the first cars under the Eunos nameplate, part of Mazda’s confusing marque expansion in the late 1980s along with the lower-end Autozam and high-end ɛ̃fini marques. The Cosmo name, however, had first appeared in 1967 and had always denoted Mazda’s most expensive model, always offered at least with the option of a rotary engine.
True to its luxury positioning, the Cosmo came fully-loaded with all the latest in creature comforts. This included a world first, the Cosmo being the first production car to feature a GPS navigation system. There was also an optional touchscreen display in the dash which housed the navigation, radio and climate controls, while a TV transmitter was also available. Talk about luxury!
While Buick may have also been offering touchscreens in its contemporary Riviera, the Cosmo’s luxurious interior left the Buick for dead, from its sleek, wraparound styling to its classy electroluminescent gauges and French elm trim. Being wider than its predecessor, the Cosmo ran afoul of Japanese vehicle taxation regulations, yet another indicator that Mazda was targeting the wealthiest of buyers.
The Cosmo was available with two twin-turbocharged rotary engines: the two-rotor 13B-RE with 230 hp and 217 ft-lbs and the three-rotor 20B-REW rated at 280 hp (wink, wink – it was probably more like 300 hp) and 297 ft-lbs. The latter was the first and thus far three-rotor engine in a production car. With the 20B engine, the Cosmo could hit 60 mph in around 6 seconds.
That’s not to say the Cosmo was some barebones racer. No, this was a plush, grand touring 2+2, weighing 3500 pounds and sending all that power to the rear wheels via a four-speed automatic transmission – no manual was available. Suspension was double wishbones up front and a multi-link set-up at the rear and the Cosmo rode and handled commendably, although it was tuned for comfort and had some body roll in the corners. Dimensionally, the Cosmo was 2 inches longer than a BMW 8-Series but 2 inches narrower. Unlike past generations of Cosmo, the Eunos Cosmo wasn’t based on the same platform as the large Luce sedan and instead used its own, exclusive platform.
This Cosmo is one of 8,875 produced between 1990 and 1996 and one of very, very few in North America. There was no North American launch – these were tipped to be the aborted Amati brand’s flagship – and there would be no replacement for these as Mazda suffered from the effects of the Japanese bubble economy. At least the Cosmo name went out with a bang, on this exquisite masterpiece of a flagship.
While this Cosmo has the two-rotor 13B under the hood (which accounted for around 60% of sales), it’d still make a marvellous addition to your garage. Besides, beggars can’t be choosers – how often are Eunos Cosmos on Craigslist?
Would you buy this piece of automotive history?
I like it. A lot. I suppose it was more or less a competitor to the Lexus SC400/300, right? It looks great, slightly awkward roofline notwithstanding, and likely goes quite well, nothing is as smooth as a good rotary.
Weird though that the seller uses one picture that looks like it’s in Washington (the first picture), but all the others appear to have been taken while still in Japan.
The “Update” would worry me too: “This car had an instrument cluster failure and it has been fixed. Downfall to this is the working cluster shows 104,xxx KM (23,xxx KM more than the original cluster)”
At least it’s above ground. Nice find, William.
Still very low mileage for a car that age.
While alluring, this is the kind of car that frightens me. Exotic technology unlike anything ever sold here and with very few examples ever built. What could go wrong? Well, besides everything.
The interior reminds me just a bit of the Continental Mark VIII. That car would be nightmare enough to own as an old car. This would be full-on night terrors.
That could make an interesting comparison test: “Scariest High-End Used Cars.” The BMW 850 would probably get a nomination as well. Even with the maintenance issues, though, this Mazda really is a beauty.
I would guess with enough money you could keep a BMW 850 on the road. It’s not going to be cheap, but it’s possible.
On the other hand, with this car the challenge is almost any part you would need would be made out of unobtanium. Trying to find a second one you could import just for the parts would not be a bad idea.
I’m guessing the BMW 850 isn’t actually as nightmarish to maintain as you’d expect. Probably shares most of the engine and likely a lot of other parts with the E32 and E38 7-Series.
The Mazda on the other hand, maybe you could take rotor “slices” out of an RX-7, as I understand it the Mazda Wankel is modular and the Cosmo simply has three rotors sandwich-stacked behind each other instead of just two, but the rest of the car is going to be Japanese mumbojumbo.
I’ll take one of these.
One of our readers in California actually has one, a ’91 Golf Country in green. Keep your eyes open, he drives it regularly.
Wonder what he had to go through to make it emission legal, California has rules for 25 year old imports that are as clear as mud. Should be no problem in Washington state where I live, though.
Not for me, but if anyone is really serious about this I might be willing to go inspect it for you.
Like JPC the fact that it is a non-US car and there weren’t very many built in the first place has me worrying that a relatively simple failure would lead to a rather large, heavy and expensive lawn ornament.
I’d love to at least drive one of the nice versions with the full leather and 3 rotor.
Hmmm – I am going to say no thanks. The price is very good considering that perhaps 1/3 to 1/4 of it has been spent by the seller between the cost of importing the car and fixing the instrument cluster. But what is the buyer going to do with this car beyond the occasional Cars & Coffee appearance? The luxury trim level speaks to making it a daily driver for a few years, but the RHD set-up makes it a bit of a PITA in that role. Besides, I’ve done ‘new-girlfriend-walks up to the wrong side of the car’ thing. More of them will think you and your car are weird than will think you and your weird car are cool.
So back to the search for usefulness. The luxury trim’s inherent weight rules out track days etc. There’s almost no collector demand for these since they were never sold here, and (as stated above) have no desirability for performance use unlike the Skylines et al, so there’s no future upside in just keeping it around waiting for its value to increase. No American kid ever grew up with a poster of Sarah Fawcett and and Eunos on his wall.
Finally there’s the maintenance and repair problem. There is going to be zero-point-zero support for these cars. You will be able to get some help on the rotary to the extent the twin turbo is like that in the RX cars. Beyond that, you’re on your own. Sure there will be lots of parts interchangeability with other Mazdas but it will be up to you to sit down at the parts bin and sort through ball joints until you find one that works. There might be some internet support for these but the fan club will be small with only 8,900 made 25 years ago, and that fan club will speak Japanese.
So, I’d predict a fun two years with the car and then a cold, cold bath when some important bit of unobtainiam breaks.
There are too many other fun ways to waste $10,000 over two or three years.
It’s the electronics that make it scary. Like the Cadillac Allante with the bazillion tiny pushbutton switches and electro lumicent speedo and tach dials.Or the Riviera with that first ancient touch screen. That goes out and you can’t control the a/c, heater, or radio. Of course modern cars have even more computer control, but they are new with much better reliability and of course a warranty. With short term leasing they will move into their second owner shortly.
For a vintage car my tastes run to simpler, more basic designs. I guess that’s why old Mustangs and muscle cars have been so popular.
Inspires confidence.
This is like a hybrid of a BMW 8-series and a Citroen SM. A beautiful nightmare.
Interesting car, but the exterior is kinda ugly. Pass.
Beautiful car.
I saw a few of these when they were first imported to Canada at 15 years old. They did seem to last long on the road though.
As I recall these were almost essentially hand built and given their complexity I’ll stick to admiring someone else’s car.
This has to be one of the most soothing interiors I’ve ever seen, right up there with the SC3/400s. Nice Star Trek TNG vibe about it, almost. Futuristic but comforting. “Rotary speed…engage!”
Agreed! I thought of the Enterprise D immediately after I saw the interior pics with the tan leather seats and the controls.
LS/LT V8 and 6 speed autobox in that thing, it would be bulletproof. Except for the dash. If I were properly motivated, there’d be a way around that, too. I wonder what Dakota gauges would charge to get something GM & OBDII compatible for this?
OTOH, I can stuff a LS/LT into a 944/968, 928 or Jag and have something much more livable and workable.
Sorry, hard pass on that one.
Even if we factor out the “yer screwed” parts and service situation, I’ve got a good reason not to want it: it can’t be safely driven at night. Japan-spec headlamps are for the wrong/left side of the road. That’s permanent, built into their optics; it’s not a matter of aim or any other adjustment. Wrong-side-of-road headlamps = no seeing distance down your side of the road, because most of the light is going into oncoming drivers’ eyes. Lose-lose. There don’t seem to have been any of these cars made for RH-traffic countries, so unless you wade into hack-and-slash makeshift fixes…yer screwed!
I’d happily test-drive somebody else’s ’91 Eunos Cosmo, though.
I imagine that situation would affect a lot of interesting Japanese cars that are a staple as used imports in RHD countries – Silvias and Skylines come to mind…..
Yup.
(it’s better to say “LHT countries”, for left-hand traffic; the position of the steering wheel in the car doesn’t matter, the position of the car on the road does—and most countries permit “wrong-hand drive” cars, which nevertheless have to be driven on the correct side of the road)
Pretty simple fix just change the bulbs to a local version.
It’s not the bulbs, it’s the headlamps themselves—which do not exist in a right-traffic version for this car (and many other Japan-only models).
Aaaaaah, the things that could have been…….. back in the early 00’s I was looking for a new car after selling my ST162 Celica that is mentioned here :https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1982-toyota-celica-xx-a-supra-by-any-other-name/
Being an early 20’s single guy I wanted something quick, good looking, and (in my mind) would pull girls…… There were a few options I was considering, from GTi-R Pulsars, R33 Skyline GTS-25t coupes, SW20 MR-2 GT’s, even looked at a couple of Mitsubishi FTO GP-X’s, and a U13 Bluebird SSS Attessa-Ltd (think mid-90’s Altima with an SR20DET and 4wd). Oooooh yes, late 90’s-early 00′ NZ was a WONDERFUL place for JDM cars.
Anyway, I was at a particular dealerships yard, just browsing, and saw something up the back of the yard that piqued my interest. Yep, a Cosmo, even for a land awash with JDM performance cars at the time these were rare, and this was the top spec, Type-E ECCS, exactly like the interior pics above. I asked the salesman what it was going for, and he explained that it had just arrived, hadn’t even been groomed or costed yet. I asked if we could take it for a drive, and to be honest, I think the salesman was happy to have an excuse to take it out. So off we went.
We didn’t take it too far, but man, it had an amazing sound. The difference from a 2-rotor was like the difference between an I4 and I6, but even smoother, at idle it was more like a quiet hum, then as it progressed through the rev range more like a deep buzz. Handling was good, as far as i could tell on the limited drive we had, as was performance, although we didn’t go near any open roads or freeways, it certainly went from standstill to 80-odd kmh pretty quickly.
We returned to the dealership, and I told the salesman that I’d call around to get some ideas on insurance costs, and as I was going sailing for the weekend I’d contact him on Monday.
I called back on the Monday, and I was informed it had been sold Sunday morning! I was pretty disappointed, as I had been pretty keen on that car. In hindsight though it was probably a good thing, as others have commented, it would have probably been a bit of a maintenance nightmare, and would have eaten all my wage to fuel it.
I ended up buying a ’91 Legend Coupe Alpha, which was probably 80% of the performance, with 90% of the luxury, at 70% the price, and 50% less fuel and maintenance cost…..
Still gorgeous after all these years. I had read about these in “Road & Track” (IIRC) when they were new and lamented the fact they wouldn’t be sold here.
I LOVE these! So elegant and plush without being overwrought and cheesy. Truly one of Mazda’s greatest masterpieces.
Some of the nicest organic styling is shown on the late 1980s-early 1990s Mazdas. You have the Mx5 Miata, the new Mx6 and the new Rx7. This design stands up as well as any of them some 20 years after it came out. Beautiful and elegant, with enough curves to balance out the straight planes and angles. Mazda was really on a styling roll at the time; even though I love the current Mx5 (HF in particular), you’d be hard pressed to find a Mazda from the middle 90s that wasn’t well styled – or that looks as good today as when it came out.
I wonder if the seller has repointed the headlamp output or covered the part of lens for the right rule of road. That would be easier said than done due to the fluting pattern on the lens for the left rule of road and shield underneath the bulb, controlling the output inside the headlamp. Otherwise, the motorists approaching you would think you left the high beam on and irritatingly return the favour. You’d get tired of it fast.
The headlamps can’t be “repointed” or otherwise adapted for RH traffic. See my comments above.
One day I’ll have one – if there’s any of the 20Bs that haven’t been stripped for their power plants. At least it would be more conductive to children than my Autozam AZ-1!
There is a decent western following for these, and there are done common issues with them. Bet there’s fixes for all. And any Mazda dealer can order parts for them, or which 90% are still available new.