Mazda had tried to be in luxury market before. Back to 1992 Mazda had planned to release a luxury brand Amati to compete with Acura, Infiniti, and Lexus in North America. The initial planned Amati line-ups include Amati 300、Amati 500、and a luxury sports coupe based on the Mazda Cosmo. Unfortunately the Amati brand was eventually scrapped before any vehicle were sold. And Amati 500 became Mazda Millenia sold in the US.
Recently when I compared friend’s new 2017 Lexus RX 350 and Mazda’s most luxurious CX-9 Signature, I can only say there’re so many things need to catch up by Mazda to be a luxury brand!
They released Eunos here as a sort of luxury brand but that failed.