M2 1015 1994

[Famine]

M2 1015 1994​

Unless you're a real Mazda nutter, there's a solid chance you'll have never heard of M2 Incorporated.

It's the least well-known of Mazda's bizarre "sub-brand" experiment in the 1990s which resulted in Mazda vehicles being available under different marques depending on the intent. There was the Eunos brand, producing sporty cars like the Roadster (MX-5), Presso (MX-3), Cosmo, and a variety of numbered cars. Efini will be familiar to GT players through the RX-7, but the name was used on more well-appointed versions of larger cars (and its dealers sold Citroens too). Autozam was the entry point with cheaper smaller cars like the rebadged Suzukis - Cara/AZ-1, Alto/Carol, Carry/Scrum - and AZ-3 (MX-3). High-end Amati will rival M2 for unknown, because it was scrapped at the last second and never produced any cars.

And then there was M2. M2 was in essence a boutique, in-house tuner and concept car manufacturer, producing tuned, tweaked, redesigned and - in some cases - absolutely insane vehicles, largely based on production Mazdas.

If any can be considered famous, it's the M2 1001 which, at 300 units reportedly made, was M2's highest volume model (in fact it accounts for about half of all M2s). This was a club racer version of the Mk1 Eunos Roadster, sporting a reworked powertrain - intake, pistons, cams, exhaust - along with a limited-slip diff and unique cosmetics, some of which made their way onto the highly desirable Roadster RS Limited. You can vote for it here.

Although a lot of what M2 made was based on the MX-5, it turned its hand to all sorts of Mazdas and that included, in 1994, the Autozam AZ-1.

Naturally, as a Kei car, not a lot of what powers the AZ-1 - identical to the Suzuki Cara - has changed. It's still producing just 63hp from a mid-mounted, turbocharged, 660cc three-pot, although given that it weighs 725kg that's just fine.

Like the Mazdaspeed AZ-1, the M2 1015 is essentially a cosmetic package, largely consisting of a redesigned front end and rear wing - made from GFRP rather than the original injection-moulded plastic. You can probably spot the new frunk cover, with a unique NACA-style duct and integrated foglights, but there's also a redesigned front bumper. The rear wing resembles the Mazdaspeed item, but features a lower element rather than the "high" single-piece square item.

M2 supposedly built just 50 of these, which would already represent just about 1% of the AZ-1's entire production run. However the relatively high price - which had already all-but killed off the AZ-1 as standard - reputedly resulted in just half of them being sold and the other half parted-out.