Autozam AZ-1 - Production

Production

The car was made available to the buying public on September 1992, with two colour options, Siberia Blue and Classic Red, both came with Venetian Gray lower panels. Each cars were sold through the Autozam dealer network in Japan.

Unfortunately by the time car came into production, the recession in Japan had just come into force. Selling for 1,498 million ¥ (the equivalent of $12,400), it was slightly less than a Eunos Roadster, but marginally higher than its competitor, the Honda Beat selling at 1,388 million ¥ and the Suzuki Cappuccino at 1,458 million ¥, the AZ-1 was considered to be too expensive and too cramped, both for a kei car, the car failed to sell within its target of 800 per month, even in the midst of an economic recession, production of the car ended after the following year, but Mazda had plenty of stocks to shift off.

With the total production of 4,392 over a year, plus 531 for the Cara version (mentioned later in the article) to 28,010 to the Cappuccino and 33,600 for the Beat, both with production reaching into the latter half of the 1990s; this makes the AZ-1 the rarest of the kei sports car.