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Took a little detour today to pay a visit to my friend Aaron and his labor of love: A neglected/abused ’93 Mazda RX-7 Touring.

Aaron and I have both been rotary engine enthusiasts for ages, but he goes back even farther than me—his first car was an ’86 RX-7 GXL. His uncle was the car’s original owner, and he had replaced it with a 3rd generation car, giving his nephew rides and creating a strong sense of “someday…”

And after years of pining, Aaron finally picked up his erstwhile dream car a little less than a year ago. We’ll charitably call the seller a younger individual from backwoods West Virginia. He had festooned the car with diametrical opposite of everything that really fits the car’s character; a giant subwoofer box, huge rear wing, ugly body kit, heavy aftermarket wheels and a nitrous system pretty much kill all an FD RX-7’s innate “driver’s car” appeal, no mean feat. On top of all that, the car had sat immobile outside for several years before the seller decide to unload it. So Aaron got a deal, but had his work cut out for him in restoring the car’s luster.

Click here for more pictures!

For all you rotorheads, this has the potential to be very big news.

Left Lane reports:

According to Mitsuo Hitomi, the general manager of Mazda’s powertrain development department, the company is about to put the final touches on an entirely new rotary engine that will easily comply with upcoming fuel economy and emissions standards.

The new engine is likely the long-awaited 16X. According to the report, Mazda engineers altered the shape of the rotor housing, and modified the intake manifold and ignition sequencing in order to dramatically improve the rotary’s efficiency, always and ever its Achilles heel, and more important than ever given the priority placed in recent years on mileage and frugality.

It’s interesting the revelation that a new rotary is so close to completion comes hard on the heels of another recent report of Mazda’s somewhat perilous financial condition. If nothing else, it’s a sign of the engine’s vital importance to Mazda’s brand identity that development continues, even at such a low level, given that there’s likely very little money in the automaker’s coffers for anything else. As enthusiasts, we can only be thankful for Mazda’s devotion to the design, and wait with bated breath to see what makes its way to the auto show circuit, or even better, the showroom floor.

Overshadowed by Mazda’s later, stunning, 3rd generation rotary-powered sports car, the ’86-’91 2nd gen plays an aspirational role for many owners. Much like its contemporary from Toyota, the ’86-’92 Supra, the 2nd gen RX-7 lives in the shadow of its faster, better-looking and far more potent sequel.

That said, the FC, as it’s known, is quite a handsomely-penned car in its own right. The Porsche 944‘s shape inspired the Japanese designers, and while the 2nd gen might not be quite as baroque and sultry as its counterpart from Stuttgart, the similarities proportion-wise are evident. Notable differences include a lack of an actual quarter light for the Mazda, and its unique headlight treatment that allows flash-to-pass while the high beams are still stowed. The Japanese car features less surface detail than the 944 as well, but it displays a taut and confident—if not overly interesting—profile.

Several details in particular stand out to me: The strong “keystone” of a C-pillar, the ever-so-slightly flared wheel arches, and especially the minimal thickness between the top of the front arch and the beginning of the sheet metal’s turn inward toward the hood. That last detail visually lowers the front end and gives the car an especially agile, grippy appearance.

No, even if its lines doesn’t deserve the admiration of the FD’s, the FC is a cohesive, attractive and often overlooked shape, one that I wouldn’t mind in the least to be seen behind the wheel of.

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series featuring cars whose design I find appealing, in contrast to mainstream opinion. Read the other installments here:

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series featuring cars whose design I find appealing, in contrast to mainstream opinion. Read the other installments here:

• ’89-’91 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Coupe
• ’99-’04 Toyota Solara Coupe
• Mazda CX-7
• ’93-’01 Subaru Impreza
• ’96-’98 Chrysler Sebring Convertible
• ’92-’97 Cadillac Seville STS
• ’95-’96 Nissan 240SX
• ’87-’88 Ford Thunderbird
• ’94-’97 Lexus LS400
• Subaru SVX
• ’03-’04 Infiniti M45

It’s appropriate, I suppose, that part VII of this series should be about an RX-7. This one was more of a brief flirtation, but it does illustrate the enduring appeal of one’s “first love,” automotively-speaking, and represents a seminal period in my thinking about cars.

In early 2003, I was underemployed and driving my ’88 Supra Turbo, pre-engine swap. Between working part-time and hunting for a serious, degree-related job, I had a fair amount of time to mull over my car situation. I liked the Supra very much; it had been my companion of sorts during my 6-month adventure in Florida the previous year, so we had some “history.” However, as evidenced by the diversity of topics on this very site, my automotive interests resist confinement to one model, brand or even type of car. The grass is always greener, and even though I did have a bond with the Supra, I was getting bored with it, as dumb a decision as a car switch would have been at that point.

My car philosophy was in flux as well. A vehicle like the Supra is easily upgradeable for big power; modification paths are readily available and well worn. That said, I was in the midst of a kind of existential crisis, coming to the realization that there would always been a car out there with more power than mine, faster than mine. That may seem like a truism, but it was very immediate for me during that period, coming to terms with the fact that the horsepower war is a bottomless money and time pit. Of course, being as broke as I was, I couldn’t have upgraded my car anyway, so it’s likely the “crisis” was, as much as anything else, a subconscious attempt to pin my automotive self-image on something other than raw speed. Convenient, that.

In any case, during my soul searching, instead of going after big power, I resolved to value qualities in a car unrelated to the amount of tire smoke it could generate on command. Self-serving it may have been, I determined to seek out the intangibles, to value the character of a car more than its spec sheet.

Naturally, my conclusion led me back to the first car I’d really fallen for, my first project car, the ’79-’85 Mazda RX-7. Even in top-of-the-line 135 hp ’84-’85 GSL-SE trim, it’s no speed demon, with a 0-60 time of around 8 seconds, comparable to that of a modern family sedan, and upgrade paths are considerably steeper than for the Supra. What it did possess was a raw, elemental feel, an eager, curve-hungry personality coupled with a unique, turbine-like rotary engine. Its timeless shape has always appealed, being neither bound to the campiness of ’70s styling conventions nor the harsh angularity of ’80s trends. And I already knew every nook and cranny of its engine bay, having performed an engine swap between a pair of ’85s. The combination of character, uniqueness, design and familiarity was irresistible. I fired up Autotrader and began hunting for one.

Being the product of part-time job daydreaming, I wasn’t completely serious about the endeavor, and even if I had been, I’d have had no idea how to unload my Supra in favor of an RX-7. I indulged my wandering emotions a bit, though, and when an ’84 GSL-SE closely resembling the one feature in this post’s pictures popped up 90 miles away, I roped a car buddy into doing some investigation with me.

We made the trip and found the car in fantastic condition. The paint was lustrous, the engine ran well (and idled properly—a rare quality for the GSL-SE’s 13B Wankel) and the interior, while brown, wasn’t the hideous maroon color many ’80s sports cars seem to have been afflicted with. I could have lived with a chocolatey RX-7 very easily, but in the end I had no real plan to acquire it, and my buddy and I returned home. Having actually kicked the tires, my longing for a first-generation RX-7 was sated just enough to clear the fog of fixation, and I backed off my quixotic quest. I rediscovered character-related attributes I enjoyed about my Supra, and learned, in the end, that even in cars with readily-tapped power potential, there are still a host of other aspects to relish.

Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series relating stories of cars I almost acquired, whether though purchase or trade. Read the other installments here:

• 1991 Audi 200 20v Turbo quattro Avant
• 1990 Mercedes-Benz 420SEL
• 1982 BMW 628CSi
• 1991 Volvo 780 Bertone
• 1969 Plymouth Sport Fury
• 1990 Audi 200 Turbo quattro
• 1975 Opel Manta

Having just finished reading the recent, excellent Ate Up With Motor article on early Mazda rotaries, I feel suitably inspired to discuss an obscure, short-lived but very cool late ’70s Mazda import: The Cosmo, or RX-5.

In the beginning of the ’70s, Mazda made an initial ambitious push to standardize the rotary across their model range, with the eventual goal of dropping piston engines altogether. To that end, they installed their Wankel engines in everything from family station wagons to sporty coupes to their pickup trucks. The cars were initially moderately successful, but just as the automaker was hitting its stride, the early ’70s fuel crisis arrived, and the rotary’s mostly undeserved reputation for thirstiness (especially compared to the gargantuan big block V8s of the day) caused buyers to shy away from Mazda’s lineup. The company felt the downturn acutely, and pulled the novel powerplant from all but a few of its cars, even those selling in tiny numbers.

Mazda had totally committed themselves to the Wankel engine, so they couldn’t simply euthanize the venture and revert to conventional engines; they had to find a “home” for the rotary. They needed ideas, and in the years between the engine’s initial fall from grace and the runaway success of the first-generation RX-7 in ’79, where Mazda finally hit on the formula that would make the Wankel financially viable, they tried a few different things.

One experiment that sadly never took off is the coupe featured in this post, the Mazda Cosmo, or RX-5 in international markets. The idea was to harness the incredible popularity in the ’70s of the “personal coupe” concept—think Cadillac Eldorado, Ford Thunderbird or Olds Toronado, among a myriad of others. So rather than give the rotary engine a completely distinctive wrapper to reflect the unconventional engine, they decided to “American-ize” the concept and ape current market trends, albeit on a smaller scale (the Cosmo tipped the scales at a welterweight 2,500 lbs).

Unfortunately, it didn’t catch on. Mazda dropped the car after the ’78 model year, when it was clear Americans just weren’t buying the recipe, apparently preferring their giant domestic land yachts or dedicated sports cars like the 280ZX to a nicely-styled but smaller personal coupe with a smooth, flexible engine and crisp handling.

I love the Cosmo. It’s incredibly obscure, which is always appealing; I love having the “What is that?” conversation in parking lots and at gas stations. Besides, as much as Mazda tried to emulate the larger American cruisers of the time, what they actually hit upon has a sort of pony car swoop and dynamic to its profile. And details like the side windows, grille and taillights, while still exhibiting some of the fussiness Japanese designs have always been notorious for, are remarkably clean, especially considering the era in which it was produced. Best of all, if you know anything about the family of Mazda rotary engines, you’ll be aware of the fact that it’s a very modular powerplant, and with a little mixing and matching of components produced over the years, it would be relatively simple to assemble a much more powerful rotary to drop right into the Cosmo chassis. So it’s eminently upgradeable. As unloved as it was in its day, to me here and now, those qualities add up to a winner.

Editor’s note: It’s understood there were two Mazda cars that shared the name “Cosmo:” The pioneering 110S and later line of personal coupes that complimented the automaker’s RX-7 sports car line and concluded with the stunning JC Cosmo of the early ’90s.

For some reading on the more esoteric aspects of cars and what makes them go, check out the following links, all of which I’ve learned from and greatly enjoyed:

• The Autozine Technical School. Covers a huge array of topics and seems to be kept fairly current. I’m particularly fond of their discussion of engine balance and the differences between engine configurations (I4, V6, H6, V8, etc) with respect to engine smoothness.
• AnimatedEngines.com. Features cheeky little animations of various types of engines, and not just internal combustion ones at that. In fact, I’d say the non-IC engines are the more fascinating for their complexity and ingenuity.
• RotaryEngineIllustrated.com. Co-founded by the late Blake Qualley, something of a hero in the rotary community, this site’s animations are pretty polished, and showcase the operation of the Wankel engine from many different perspectives.

Hope you enjoy and benefit from the sites as much as I have. From that last one, click on the jump below to view a particularly noteworthy animation of the recently-axed RX-8’s RENESIS rotary engine:

Watch the clip!

As production of Mazda’s aging RX-8 sports coupe winds down and with it, production of the automaker’s signature rotary engine, I think it’s worthwhile to pause and scrutinize the car’s 8-year model run.

Introduced in 2004 in the US, the RX-8 represented the long-awaited reintroduction of the rotary engine to our market after the too-hasty departure of the 3rd generation RX-7 in 1995. Rumors had been swirling for years about which form the return would take, and after a series of teaser concept cars like the RX-01 and RX-EVOLV, it’s fair to say no one really knew how Mazda would package the engine, if indeed it did return. Would it be a fire-breathing road-eater like the 3rd-gen RX-7? A cheap and tossable sports car like like the 1st-gen? Or something completely different? More than anything, speaking as a Mazda fan and rotary buff, we just hoped Mazda wouldn’t compromise in the fun-to-drive department.

We got something of a mixed bag. Jeremy Clarkson remarked in his review that the car looked like it had been “styled by suggestion box,” and that statement could have held true for the engineering as well. To summarize the pros and cons of the then-new RX-8, the good points:

• Low weight. Mazda admirably kept the car around 3000 lbs for the entirety of its model run.
• Excellent handling. Review after review praised the responsiveness of the chassis, and in their recent comparo, Car and Driver ranked the 7-year-old RX-8 an astonishing third, beating out even the M3.
• Some measure of practicality. Stung by criticism of the late 3rd-gen RX-7’s single-minded focus on performance at the expense of everyday livability, Mazda added a pair of so-called “freestyle doors” to enhance rear seat access. They might well have been added to assuage the bean-counters’ fears, but they’re undeniably practical.

And the negatives:

• Uneven styling. Compared to its arch-rival Nissan 350Z, released shortly before the RX-8, the Mazda’s design is much less coherent. The concession to a more practical roof line is partly to blame (the 350Z is a pure 2-seater), but no one can claim the added rear seat volume is responsible for the mess of lines called the nose. The smiley face grille (exacerbated with the styling refresh in ’09, shown below) and headlights are cartoonish when they should be sleek and serious, and the profile is bulbous instead of tapered and focused. And the clear taillights and other details represent, yet again, the worst tendency of Japanese designers to chintz up the outside of their cars.
• Low power. I won’t take Mazda to task for the inherent high-revving nature of the rotary engine. The power’s at the top of the rev range, and you have to spin it—there’s no getting around that (good thing the engine makes the task so effortless). That said, what power was available wasn’t competitive in its class, and Mazda committed the cardinal sin of over-promising and under-delivering just as the car was released: They quoted a power figure of 250 hp; reality was closer to 232, and after independent dyno tests called Mazda’s bluff, they embarrassingly re-rated the car and offered to buy back those of any who were dissatisfied. At least they did damage control, but it happened at the worst possible time and to the ambassador of Mazda’s key technology. Stupid, dumb, unfortunate.

Overall, I was a huge fan of the car’s dynamics, could have lived with the power (I don’t mind winding out my cars’ engines), but had real issues with the styling, especially the ’09 refresh. I don’t think the car hurt Mazda’s or the rotary’s image—public perception is still that it’s a gas-guzzling, oil-burning hamster wheel—but the RX-8 didn’t help matters either. Basically, it dutifully carried the “halo car” torch for Mazda for 8 long years, but didn’t broadcast itself to a wider audience in any capacity other than pleasant placeholder.

Does this mean I wish Mazda had “mainstreamed” the rotary, incorporating it into a more mass-market sedan or GT bodystyle, like the automaker did in the early ’70s? Not necessarily, but the RX-8 at least could certainly have benefited from a larger dose of conviction—the amalgam of roles and compromises bundled into the car spoke of an automaker that may have soldiered on with their signature technology as a matter of duty, but not necessarily as a matter of pride. As good as it was in many ways, the RX-8 simply wasn’t focused or stunning enough. Here’s hoping that whatever form the the next wrapper for the rotary takes, it at least has a strong identity—buyers can relate to that, and respond to it; witness what Mazda itself accomplished with the Miata. As for me, I’ll be eager to see what they come up with next.

Well, that answers that.

Autoblog reports the Mazda rotary hasn’t been shelved, like I had feared, although it seems to be in a sort of cryogenic suspended animation:

Mazda execs have apparently confirmed that engineers are working on a more efficient and more powerful version of the Wankel. While the project was technically back-burnered during the economic downturn, the research wasn’t canned outright.

The “more efficient and powerful version of the Wankel” is presumably the 16X, the long-awaited longer “stroke” (read: torquier) successor to the prolific 13B, a variant of which has been installed in every top-of-the-line Mazda sports car since 1986.

Unfortunately, the report goes on to point out:

A rotary does pair well with an extended-range electric vehicle platform, however, as the high-revving nature is perfect for turning a generator. While that may be a far cry from the low-slung RX-8, it’s at least reassuring to know that the engine design could have a future.

Again, yes and no. While it would be gratifying on some level to know that Felix Wankel’s internal-combustion epiphany wouldn’t be utterly tossed into the dustbin of history, being relegated to some sort of “prop” for an up-and-coming alternative propulsion technology just seems, well…demeaning to an engine configuration with so much character and untapped potential—in standalone, gasoline-burning form.

In my perfect world, Mazda would build a new front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car and a high-end sports sedan around the 16X, their development of the rotary having cracked its fuel consumption and low-end torque issues. The automotive press would hoist the new pair of models on their collective shoulders, rhapsodizing that Mazda had finally found the perfect engine to complement their peerless chassis tuning, and buyers would flock to Mazda showrooms in droves. The unexpected success would at last convince other manufacturers to give the Wankel a fresh look, and Mazda would license the technology to another automaker or two. The engine wouldn’t take over the world, so to speak, but would perform a sort of Apple-in-the-late-’90s-style comeback, slowing gaining legitimacy and a sort of non-conformist cool (more than it already has, that is) on the way to establishing a secure beachhead in the market.

To put it mildly, that’s a bit much to extrapolate from this latest confirmation that the rotary is not, in fact, dead. But I have a feeling my pipe dream is shared by more than a few rotary enthusiasts out there.

It’s cliché, but even in the car world, we’re not islands untethered, but stand on the shoulders of those who have come before and had an impact on us. This post begins a new series paying tribute to those people I consider seminal in my development as a car buff.

When reflecting on the forces that shaped my perspective on cars in general, I look back most often to a gentleman named David Lane. David is Director of Admissions at Peabody Conservatory and a long-time fixture on the first-generation (’79-’85) Mazda RX-7 mailing list. Our car interests occupy different orbits now, but his influence on my early days of tinkering is something of an anchor in my mind.

Our paths crossed in late ’99 on the first-gen RX-7 e-mail list. E-mail lists seem to be an obsolescent species nowadays, as natural selection continues to favor the more accessible medium of online forums. That said, David’s even-keel and avuncular demeanor complemented the e-mail list format perfectly; his talents would be wasted in the bite-size, rapid-fire world of forums. He excelled in online diplomacy, holding the list together through many flame wars and other disagreements. His warm writing style underscored the wisdom he offered to guys like me, often discouraged by speed bumps and setbacks in the course of our first car projects. And when it was all said and done and I had completed my first engine swap in the summer of 2000, David extended the kind of verbal pat on the back that made me feel like I had been initiated into the ranks of the mechanically accomplished, even though there were many pitfalls yet to come.

And then there was his car. You can read the full spec sheet here, but suffice it to say that it remains a legend in the first-gen RX-7 world, the “pinnacle of one path of automotive evolution,” as one fan remarked. It created a sort of template in my mind of the attributes I would aspire to create in whatever project car I took on: Understated style, attention to detail, and well-sorted but brutal performance when the hammer was down.

More than that, though, his words in the following article provided a philosophical foundation for my opinions about the cars and communities I would come into contact with in the ensuing years. It’s written with RX-7s in mind, but the principles it contains are transferable to any model of car owners feel a passion for. It’s worth the read.

Read the article…