Eunos Cosmo

The story

The Eunos Cosmo was Mazda's bid to stand beside Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, and it went about it in a thoroughly Mazda way. Under a long, unadorned hood sat either a twin-rotor 13B or the 20B, 3 rotors fed by sequential turbochargers and rated on paper at 280 PS (276 hp), a ceiling set by a Japanese industry agreement rather than by the engine. Inside, the top Type-E carried a color touchscreen running GPS navigation, audio, phone and climate from a single display, a pairing no production car had offered before.

On the road it is a grand tourer, not a sports car. The second turbo joins in with a smooth swell rather than a jolt, the cabin stays hushed, and the long body prefers fast sweepers to tight switchbacks, where its size and its 4-speed automatic, the only gearbox offered, get in the way. Mazda sold it only in Japan, and the bubble that paid for it burst almost as soon as it arrived: 4,325 were built in 1990, just 331 in 1995. It lost money and won admirers, and the 20B never powered another road car.