Eunos (automobile)

Eunos was a marque of Japanese automaker Mazda, marketed as its upscale, fun to drive line in its home market. The brand existed from 1989 to 1996, when sales operations were integrated into ɛ̃fini.

History

In the late 1980s, Mazda diversified in the Japan market with the launch of three new marques. The company created Autozam, Eunos, and ɛ̃fini, in addition to the Mazda and Ford brands already marketed by it there.

The Eunos marque, was marketed as a fun to drive, upscale brand compared to entry level Autozam, traditional Mazda products, and exclusive luxury brand ɛ̃fini. The name was derived for the ancient Greek "eu" meaning "good" and "nos", an abbreviation of "numbers" in English, meant to signify a number, or assortment, of good things. The Marque was launched in Japan with the Eunos 500 in January, 1992 and many of the vehicles created were exported to other markets.

From 1991 until 1998, when the Eunos dealership was integrated into Mazda locations, Citroën products were sold to Japanese buyers, as well as Mazda's ɛ̃fini locations.

This experiment was ended in the mid-1990s. Some of the vehicles sold under the Eunos brand were intended to be sold in North America under the Amati brand, but due to economic conditions, largely attributed to the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in 1991, Amati was not launched.