Aoshi Shinomori

Isn't the Miata a money maker for Mazda? They sell tons of 'em and if I recall correctly, it's the top selling sports car ever. Anyway, I'd love to see the RX8 be a long run car, I am interested in seeing what can be done with the rotary engine and more production means more R and D, I hope anyway.(I hope they don't sit on the same engine forever)

DARKMAZ8

The 8 is a huge hit but if oil prices go to 100+ a barrel, I doubt they will continue the rotary unless it will be hydrogen power'd.

The 8 will never reach 3rd gen status. I can't even trade my 2004 base 8 for a 10 year old 7. :p

Morgan

haha. We'll see what happends....15 years from now, 50% of us will still be post ****** and i'll be going , "REMEBER BACK IN 2005 WHEN I TOLD YOU SO!?! HA! :D" lol! that would be wonderful...

btw...if i get married in the next 15 years, all ya'll are invited. hehe

DreRX8

Remember Mazda is doing work on hydrogen powered RX8s--so its a fledgling lineup--and yes the Miata does make money for Mazda--but its still not the bread and butter. I think we will see the RX8 for at least a minimum of another 3-5 years.

Sigma

Only about 800 Miatas are sold every month in the US. It's hardly "tons". About 2000 RX-8s are sold every month.

That doesn't mean Mazda makes more money on the RX-8 though. The RX-8 requires an entirely seperate facility for its' engine production which is done by hand, an entirely different research team for the rotary, and probably makes a much smaller margin than the Miata which, for what it is, sells for quite a bit of money (almost definitely has a margin significantly larger than that of the RX-8, particularly with all the rebates) and is rarely changed significantly to save on costs.

But whether one or both make money really doesn't matter. The RX-8 in particular is a "halo car"; and, if it is indeed losing money, a "loss leader".. It gets people interested in the brand and on your lots to look at your other products. Every manufacturer has at least one loss leader and/or halo car; often one-in-the-same but not necessarily so. At last weekend's Dallas Auto Show the RX-8 was immensely popular, drawing more people than even a lot of the exotics were. While sales might not reflect ultimate buying interest there is little doubt that the RX-8 brings Mazda a great deal of much-needed attention on its' greatly enhanced lineup. This ultimately leads to more sales of products that do make a lot of profit, particularly the Mazda3 and even the Mazda6 (when it's not rebatedd heavily) -- which together account for over 50% of Mazda sales (the RX-8 is less than 10% and the Miata only 3%) in the US.

DARKMAZ8

in 15 years I will bet you the 7 will be worth 10 times wat an 8 will.

The 8 is a great car but not in the same league or in the same sport for that matter.

Sigma

Well, seeing that the entire 3rd generation production of the RX-7 in the US amounts to less than half what the RX-8 production is in a single year, that's not hard to believe.

Mazda will sell almost as many RX-8s in a month as the entire 1994 RX-7 model year sold, and more RX-8s will sell in a week than the entirety of the 1995 RX-7 model year.

They're entirely different cars made for entirely different purposes. You might as well be comparing appreciation value to an classic Porsche. And, hell, even most of those are produced in larger numbers than the RX-7 was.

Rotary Soul

you're probably right, but then again... rx-8 is one time only, from what i understand... rx-7s will always have new iterations, while a new generation rx-8 in 8 years is definitely not guarenteed.

as for the MT/AT debate... what the AT guys say is kind of true, it's strange how much MT guys like to bag on AT. if i were married, i'd probably get an AT (although i really wouldn't want to) cuz ****, my wife or kids may need it for emergencies.

DARKMAZ8

I know this and I'm not comparing both cars at all. Im just saying that the 8 won't depreciate like the 7 and no one with an 8 should think otherwise.

MassiveAttack

Darkman,

I thought you were saying the 8 will depreciate MORE than the 7?

--Massive

rodmeister

Nope. I have a health problem; drove an RX-7 MT for 10 years. Some AT drivers cannot use MT for a variety of reasons, though if you're able-bodied and young you should be driving an MT, otherwise you're losing out on a lot of fun.. :D

DARKMAZ8

It will, but both will depreciate regardless. Im saying that the 8 won't have the same depreciation as the 7.

JeRKy 8 Owner

I would actually be happy if Mazda took the RX-8 off the market for a year or two and then relaunched with a hydrogen rotary. Im thinking that might help the shitty resale value I currently have on mine. Currently in my area there are less than one hundred 2005 RX8s available in a 100 mile radius.

Occasionally I like to drive into dealerships and see where my car stands as a trade-in...and the lowest I've been offered is 16000 from a Nissan dealership and the most was $20,000 (of course that was from the dealership I originally bought my car from while bsing that I was going to trade for an 05 white 6speed). Im at just about 30,000 miles now after 20 months of ownership.

Oh well.

Gord96BRG

Yup - that was the reason, in 2003. Their RX-8 development budget didn't have room for the cost AT THE TIME to design a new auto transmission, just for the RX-8. Now, 2 years later, they've had time and had a budget.

The rumour I first heard about 1.5 years ago was that there would be a new 5 speed auto that could handle the revs and power of the HiPower engine, and a 6 speed SMG as well, for the 2006 model year RX-8, and that these units would be shared with the NC MX-5. I was surprised to see the 6 speed auto when the NC was announced in March, but I'm quite confident that the unit was designed to be shared with the RX-8 whether it has 5 or 6 speeds, and that the '06 RX-8 will have the 6 speed auto on the HiPower engine. (No word on what is happening with the SMG - perhaps being reserved for a MazdaSpeed RX-8?)

Sorry Morgan, but that's completely wrong. The RX-8 factory is still churning out cars at full capacity, and the sales have definitely matched projections!

In the 15 years of production, there have been over 700,000 MX-5s produced - it is the best selling sports car ever (Guiness Book of Records certified).

Sure, current Miata/MX-5 sales are relatively slow. However, when new it was a huge sales phenomenon, and hit 100,000 sales in 17 months. Interestingly, it has only taken the RX-8 18 months to hit the 100,000 mark - which shows that RX-8 sales are actually doing very well indeed!

Regards,
Gordon

DreRX8

Thanks for shedding some light on these things Gordon--what kind of performance do you think the 6spd auto RX8 will have? My guess is 0-60 in low to mid 7 seconds with 1/4mi in the 15s.(?)