Felix's Rotary History

On older Mazda cars and parts, you may find the words "Toyo Kogyo". This was the mother company's name prior to changing it to Mazda Motor Corporation in 1984, long after it began selling cars bearing the Mazda name.

Toyo Kogyo introduced longer than industry standard warranties on rotary models before long warranties became PC. When the first rotary models went on sale in the US, most brands came with 12 month/12,000 mile warranties, while the new rotaries offered 24 month/24,000 mile. Right after grandfather bought his 1974 RX-4 wagon Mazda began 3 year/50,000 mile protection on remaining 1974 models. This lasted until mid-year 1976 when it was upped to 5 year/75,000 miles.

The history of the sporty and sports car markets is a study in frustration and compromise. But a new chapter is being written--and in it the protagonist Mazda RX-7 delivers a true sports car with an unprecedented bundle of desired characteristics at an affordable price.

The problem of quality vs. performance vs. price has been well-known to a growing number of the young-in-heart who have yearned for a sports car. Briefly, this was the situation:

Sports cars were conceived to deliver distinctive styling along with lively performance and high quality. But to get all three, without compromise, the prospective owner was left staring at a truly exorbitant price tag.

Sporty cars, on the other hand, found their place because of the inherent attractiveness of the sports car look. To satisfy appearances at a manageable price, a prospective owner had to stettle for a performance-value package that was seldom better than an ordinary family car.

True sports car enthusiasts kept looking. And in so doing, they learned more about the choices open to them. What they found was that most sports cars, whether exorbitantly priced or moderately priced, had other drawbacks: harsh ride, cramped space, high noise level and--perhaps the biggest disappointment for those who were, after all, seeking a sophisticated machine--poor drivabilty at low speeds.

Not surprisingly, Toyo Kogyo's research shows that many potential customers ultimately decided against buying a sports car: The price was really much too high for the particular combination of good and bad that such cars had to offer.

For TKK, the existence of this frustrated group of consumers was a marching order for a new approach. The company, for many reasons, sought the solution in the rotary engine--and it brought to the testing of this hypothesis worthy credentials in the rotary engine field: 16 years of research and development, 930,000 such engines manufactured, 10 years of marketing and repeated successes on the racetracks of the world.

The result was the Mazda RX-7.

Its rotary engine operates as smoothly as an 8-cylinder engine, as powerfully as a 6-cylinder engine--yet is lighter and smaller than a 4-cylinder. The compactness of the rotary engine enabled the designer to create an aerodynamically shaped body by positioning the engine in a front-mid location, thus achieving nearly ideal weight distribution and a very low center of gravity. Consequently, the Mazda RX-7 has very predictable handling characteristics and stable braking performance without the harsh ride of the usual sports car.

The flat torque curve of the rotary engine gives the Mazda RX-7 excellent drivability even at very low speeds without sacrificing superior performance. And the inherent smootheness of the rotary engine makes it a very quiet sports car--up to now, a contradiction in terms.

The combination of characteristics--elegant styling, excellent all-around comfort, roomy storage, high quality and reasonable fuel economy--is by itself a unique package. The culminating surprise is found in the price, which makes the car truly attainable.

That's why the Mazda RX-7 will be seen on city streets and mountain roads, on weekdays and holidays, on freeways and racetracks. And behind the wheel will be the well-informed sports car enthusiast, man or woman, who has found the value that had eluded so many for so long.

From the Technoid column in the November 1979 issue of "Car & Driver":

Toyota reports that it has developed a 130 HP two-rotor Wankel that meets 1981 U.S. emissions regs without such hardware as a three-way catalytic converter, fuel injection, and electronic engine controls. Toyota also claims the new rotary delivers 20 percent better mileage than a piston engine of equivalent power."

This has nothing to do with rotaries, but is interesting nonetheless. The editors of "Car & Driver" were curious how fast an engine swap could be accomplished. As reported in the April 1980 issue, they commissioned Junior Johnson's NASCAR team to simulate a swap under racing conditions. Junior, having done about five swaps under actual racing conditions, estimated that they had done one in thirteen minutes. Result: seven minutes, twenty-five point nine seconds.

From the Letters column in the August 1995 issue of "Car & Driver":

"After reading [Sport: F1 in H2O, "Car & Driver", May 1995], two other engineers and I at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, went to a 15-meter staircase and used my speed up it and my mass to calculate my power output. A "dry run" yielded 1.1143 hp, proving Philips wrong. Obviously, though, he claimed that a drunk college student generated a mere 1 hp, so I drank a fifth of vodka and two beers and then ran up the stairs while quite blasted. I still managed to output 1.0904 hp. So the next time one of your writers decides to use a obscure and little known piece of information, check to see if it is right before you print it. Of course, I wouldn't recommend that anyone try to get 4.50 g or 152 mph out of me in that condition. I'm afraid that the extra 0.09 hp I gained over an unleaded college student comes at the cost of turning me into a Buick GNX instead of the usual RX-7 (and frankly, I hate GNX owners) that I am. And along those lines I close by saying that I'd rather be rotary that pisst-on." Justin Cordesman, Arlington, VA

F1, for those who don't know, is a 2.0 liter outboard professional racing tunnel boat class. 4.50 g above is not a typo, it's the cornering force typically generated by one of these boats. Watch "Speedvision" long enough on any given Wednesday and you should be able to see them in action.

How powerful are the new rotaries? 'Two-thirds more power than our previous highest-horsepower racing engine!' says OMC's engineering wizard, Charlie Strang, group vice-president in charge of marine products. Of course, OMC has never revealed the exact horsepower of those 'previous' racing motors. It is generally felt they produced something over 200 hp. If true, this indicates more than 330 hp for the new four-rotor outboard.

"The two-liter displacement is roughly 122 cu. in., compared with 99.6 for the present Evinrude 135-hp four-cylinder piston engines. There's no question that the power is there--and the torque curve of the Wankel is suited to snatching a boat from low speed to high speed with breathtaking acceleration." pp 75-6

  ". . . NEWS FLASH
     After we had gone to press, word came that
the new rotary outboards had won the Galveston
Speed Classic 1-2-3, lapping the entire field
three times. A fourth rotary barrel-rolled and
smashed midway."			p 135

Stay tuned. Several pix from mag need to be scanned in. (Felix has no scanner.)

1. A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until after that year instead of before it.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would just die for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car 95 or a Car NT. But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Sun Motorsystems would make a car that was powered by the sun, twice as reliable, and five times as fast--but it would only run on 5 percent of the roads.
6. The oil, engine, gas, and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a simple "General Car Fault" warning light.
7. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for years.
8. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas.
9. The U.S. Government would be getting subsidies from an automaker, instead of giving them.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same-size butt.

Links to history in the making.

Car Magazine Test index and summary. Not just rotary, includes some of the competition.