The Tokyo Auto Salon can really be overwhelming.
You walk the halls with a specific plan of attack, analyzing each car you see and assessing whether it would be relevant for one of the posts you are preparing. This lasts for about a minute, before you just lose focus and run around like a 12-year-old fanboy, drooling over each amazing car you see.
While keeping order in the way you approach the show is hard, what’s easy is running into JDM awesomeness – builds that stop you in your tracks and beg to be looked at in more detail. Builds like this Mazda Eunos Cosmo.
The JC Cosmo is a car I’ve loved since coming to Japan, and when I saw this example from afar I was immediately drawn to it. It was built by Garage Yamaguchi in Chiba, so it does make sense that the car wears quite a few RE Amemiya touches given they’re based out of the same prefecture.
The most important one of all is under the hood – a far-from-stock 20B that some of these Cosmos came factory-fitted with. This hand-built creation features peripheral ports, individual throttle bodies and many one-off parts that were used in RE Amemiya’s GT300 race car back in the day.
The best thing of all for me, however, is the fact that with such a beast of a naturally aspirated rotary engine hiding away up front, the rest of the car looks pretty sedate.
The exterior is spotless, sporting widened fenders that are beautifully integrated into the bodywork front and rear. The kit is again from RE Amemiya, aligning perfectly with the mechanical work that’s been done to the car.
And hiding away behind the 19-inch Work Black Label Zeast BST2 wheels at all four corners are massive Endless brakes.
Custom LED taillights from Car Shop Glow finish off what is a stunning creation, one that I will be trying to hunt down for a full feature out in the wild.
There’s no mention of the actual performance, but if the GT300 cars were limited to 300hp, this one is definitely breathing more freely, which means more power. Plus, the sound it makes must be ridiculous.
Seeing this car at TAS 2020 made me wonder if and when Mazda will bring back the legendary Cosmo namesake. Just picture this thing reimagined for the modern era…
Dino Dalle Carbonare
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dino@speedhunters.com