Mazda Classic Car Museum

In May this year the first official classic Mazda museum outside of Japan opened in Augsburg, Germany. This was good news for me because it's just a two hour drive from where I live and you don't get to see too many old japanese cars around here. So I decided to go there on the opening weekend and try out my new DSLR.

Despite it being in a rather small space, which is a old tram depot, there were quite a few cool cars on display. The first one that caught my eye was this beautiful Cosmo Sport.

This is probably the most iconic Mazda car of all time and I never saw one in person, so this was pretty exciting. The bodywork and details on the car were amazing.

Because it was the opening weekend the place was quite crowded and taking a shot wasn't always easy. But I think most people didn't really know what they were looking at and strangely enough out of all cars the white Cosmo Sport was the easiest to photograph.

I could have looked at this beauty for hours and still found new little details you don't find anymore on cars these days.

The next machine on my radar was this orange kei car. A Mazda Chantez that didn't look like your typical museum piece. It was well used with a few rust spots here and there, I quite enjoyed this one. 

I love it when car models get their own unique name instead of just a few numbers combined with one or tow letters. And of course it gets even better when it's got its own unique emblems like this one has.

It also reminded me that you don't have to spend huge amounts of money to own a cool car and I think thats why I liked it so much.

Next in line of the little Chantez was pretty much every Mazda rotary production car I'm aware of (I'm sure theres some I've never heard of).  

I instantly made up stories in my head when I saw this gentleman checking out the blue R100. Maybe he had one back in the day, maybe not... who knows but it made a cool picture.

I really dig those badges car makers put on their vehicles in the 70's and 80's to proudly show the world the newest technical innovations they've put in there.

Yep, according to the sign in front of it this beast is powered by a rotary aswell. That blew my mind, can you imagine this thing going up a hill making screaming rotary sounds?! Must be pretty wild.

Back to the more conventional rotarys with this sweet RX-3. They really hit the nail on the head, back when they designed this beauty.

I'd prefer one with some wider wheels and maybe even some fender flares but even all original I think it looks bad ass.

This RX-2 was parked behind the blue R100. It was getting a bit dark back there and the only lens I had that could handle the low light has a pretty long focal lenght which didn't help in the small space either. 

I guess you can't tell the history of Mazda without the Miata. And while this one wasn't the only one on display at the museum it was for sure the most special one. A Eunos Roadster Coupe in A-Spec trim. Only around 180 of the Coupes were sold by Mazda on the japanese market only. I really wasn't expecting to see, what is in my opinion the best Miata ever available from the factory, here in person.

Despite being called the Mazda Classic Car Museum they have cars from the fifties all the way to the late nineties, for the most part displayed in chronological order, there. Unfortunately the view at this Eunos Cosmo was somewhat blocked. 

I think thats all for now, I had a great time there. It's a really high quality selection of cars to see and I would totally recommend it especially if you're a fan of Rotarys, Mazdas or japanese cars in general.