World’s Least Powerful Gullwing Door Sports Car Finally Gets The Rotary Power It Deserves
If you have even a passing interest in obscure JDM curiosities, the Mazda Autozam AZ-1 is probably already on your shortlist. The pint-sized, mid-engine kei car was engineered to sit neatly within Japan’s strict limits on size and displacement. The example you’re looking at here, however, couldn’t care less about those boundaries.
This once-humble gullwing coupe has completely abandoned the kei car rulebook, trading compliance for excess with an outrageous widebody conversion and a brutally overpowered rotary engine swap.
The project is a joint effort between Goda Bodywork and rotary legends RE Amemiya. Still officially a prototype, it made its first public appearance at the Tokyo Auto Salon last weekend. Even unfinished, it had no trouble stealing attention on the show floor.
One glance is enough to tell this AZ-1 has been fundamentally reworked. The car’s originally narrow proportions have been blown out by massive front and rear fender flares, giving it a stance that feels almost cartoonishly wide. The factory 13-inch wheels have been scrapped in favor of imposing 18-inch alloys, with the rear wearing chunky 255/35 R18 tires.
That dramatic new footprint required serious changes underneath. The front suspension borrows components from the Mazda RX-8, while the rear setup is adapted from the Axela, better known internationally as the Mazda3. Functional vents remain on the hood and flanks, and a fixed rear wing now sits out back to provide genuine aerodynamic assistance.
Inside, the AZ-1 keeps things focused and mechanical. Bride bucket seats, a Nardi steering wheel, and Defi gauges dominate the cabin. There’s no infotainment system at all, a deliberate omission that makes sense once you know what’s sitting behind the seats.
The heart of the build is the engine swap that turns this AZ-1 from novelty into lunacy. The original 660 cc Suzuki-sourced three-cylinder has been removed and replaced with a 1.3-liter 13B rotary. RE Amemiya didn’t stop there, opting to mount the engine transversely, an extremely rare configuration for this powerplant.
The 13B started life in an RX-7 FC but now runs twin rotors from the RX-8, EFI throttle bodies, and a Link-based ECU. Output is claimed at 402 horsepower, an absurd 538 percent increase over the AZ-1’s original 63-horsepower figure.
All that power is sent to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox sourced from a Mazdaspeed3, paired with a custom clutch and an OS Giken differential. Given the AZ-1’s featherweight construction, the resulting power-to-weight ratio borders on the ridiculous.
Goda Bodywork has confirmed the car is not street legal and will never be offered for sale. The team does, however, plan to continue refining it, raising hopes that we’ll eventually hear the full fury of this rotary-powered kei mutant.
And if you’re worried about a pristine AZ-1 being sacrificed for the build, don’t be. The project began with a scrapped chassis pulled from a junkyard. Originally sold between 1992 and 1994 as the Autozam AZ-1 and Suzuki Cara, the car was Mazda’s playful answer to rivals like the Honda Beat and Suzuki Cappuccino.
