More pictures from a thoroughly excellent Mazda collection

Have you been gagging to visit a Mazda museum, but Japan’s just too far to fly? We bring good news. Europe’s first official Mazda collection has opened up.

Based in Augsberg, north west of the amusingly named town of Kissing, Frey’s Mazda Classic Car Museum features 45 vehicles from Mazda history. Auto Frey is the local Mazda dealer, if you’re wondering, and it owns 120 classics in total. So the central display will keep rotating to show them all off.

It opens with the stunning 1967 Cosmo Sport as its centrepiece, and an abundance of quirky kei cars, hot hatchbacks and cool coupes filling the rest of the room. Oh, and a bike, a bus and a hot rod-esque pick-up. For a one-make museum, there’s plenty of diversity.

Some of the stars you'll see above. We're particularly taken by the berserk AZ-1 mini-supercar, the svelte seventies RX-7 and the, um, whatever-the-heck-it-is K360.

The building itself is Augsberg’s old tram depot, which dates back to 1897, so you can even geek out on the location. It’s a couple of hours from Stuttgart, which famously houses the flagship museums of Porsche and Mercedes.

If your next Euro trip incorporates visits to those, why not keep an afternoon spare to see a load of Mazdas, too?