Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Autozam
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Overview== In the late 1980s, Mazda began expansion of dealerships in Japan. The idea was to create "a familiar car shop in your city" (あなたの街の身近なカーショップ; ''Anata no machi no midjikana kāshoppu'') and network of dealerships, centred around small and medium-sized maintenance shops and used car dealers. In part of this brand strategy, Mazda launched of three new marques. The company created Autozam, [[Eunos (automobile)|Eunos]], and [[ɛ̃fini]], in addition to the Mazda and [[Ford Motor Company|Ford]] brands already marketed there. The name came from "automobile" and the first three letters of "Mazda" spelt backwards. Autozam's lineup - at the time of establishment - was centered on small cars (i.e. [[Kei car]]s and [[Compact car|compacts]]). Autozam's first flagship model was the [[Autozam Clef]], a [[sedan (car)|sedan]] of [[Mazda Cronos]] lineage. In addition, Mazda acquired the official import rights of Lancia for the purpose of supplementing the luxury car lineup. At the same time, Garage Italya also imported and sold Lancias through its own sales network. Lancia and Autobianchi brand passenger cars manufactured by the Italian Fiat Auto, such as the Lancia Thema, Lancia Delta and Autobianchi Y10, were also on sale. The nationwide sales network was controlled by "Autozam Co., Ltd." and a regional wholesale company (Autozam Co., Ltd.). Autozam's first sales hit was the [[Mazda Carol#Second generation (1989–1994)|second-generation Carol]], which became popular with young female buyers, partly due to targeted advertising. The [[Autozam Revue|Revue]] and Clef models ended up redesigned to follow the character of the much successful Carol. However, the sales of Revue and Clef ended up being disastrously sluggish, as they were completely unpopular except for a few young female users. Some of the light sports cars, such as [[Autozam AZ-1]] and the small specialty car [[Autozam AZ-3]] were also critically and publicly applauded, but did not translate to good sales.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} For short time, Autozam imported Lancia cars to Japan as a high-margin luxury car line. Lancia sales too were disappointing, as Japanese import buyers did not like buying their cars from showrooms sharing space with the cheerful and cute [[Autozam Carol]]. As a result, there was no Autozam product that was profitable except for the second generation Carol. Even the future Carol models were not as popular as the 2nd generation because it became a half-finished retro-feature concept with a slightly regressed fancy flavor when it was fully remodelled in the 3rd generation. {{citation needed|date=December 2020}} Among the Mazda 5 channel dealers, where the core model Cronos ended in a big failure, only the [[Mazda RX-7#Third generation (FD3S)|éfini RX-7]] was really popular. The sales of the best-selling [[Ford Festiva]] plummeted after the full model change, as with Autozam Carol. Autozam had become seriously unprofitable, even more so than the Eunos store, which only product was the [[Eunos Roadster]]. This caused the management of the Mazda headquarters to be severely distressed.
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)