I started to type this rant in the "Advertising" thread, but since I meandered aimlessly around my point (if there even IS a point in this) have since decided to start a new, OFF TOPIC rant for anyone else who feels Mazda missed the point by introducing a car which truly DOESN'T fit into any previous car-classification category.

Here goes...
Here's how I view the RX-8:
* The point behind the engine is light weight and small size for relatively high power.
* The point behind the balance of the car is the weight and position of the engine in the chassis.
* The point behind the chassis is, since the weight was perfect, why not make it double wishbone front and rear and give it perfect camber curves for exceptional handling.
* The point behind the handling is to make it a fun car to own.
* The point behind having a fun car is the joy that comes from driving it.

The extra doors and rear seats are a bonus, and make the car one of the few new SPORTS cars I can afford to own for any reasonable amount of money. However, they could have done better. They could have OWNED the 2-seat, 2-door coupe market. Here's how.

Let's look at the "sports car market". I'd buy an MX-5 to get the gas mileage, but it only has two seats. I'd buy a 350Z for the straight-line acceleration, but it only has two seats. I'd buy either the Evo or the STI, but just can't handle the full-size extra doors (I like coupes). I'd buy the G35, but can't stand the thought of paying thousands extra for two seats which are SMALLER than those in the RX-8, and harder to get into to boot. I'd buy a new Mustang if Ford ever got off their butts and built one with the kind of suspension they placed under the $150k GT. I'd buy an IS300 only they too come with 4 full doors. Why, Lexus, why couldn't you have built an IS300 coupe instead of that horrendous-looking, bathtub-like convertible? I'd buy an Audi TT but Quattro costs thousands (haven't they paid for that system something like 100 times over by now?) and the rear seats are even smaller than those of the G35 coupe! I'd buy a Nissan S-15 Silvia but the nut-tards over at Nissan Japan evidently feel that selling a turbocharged, well-balanced, easily-modified, good-handling, mid-$20k 4 seat coupe would be difficult in the US. Evidently only Infiniti has salespeople talented enough to make a V-6, well-balanced, easily-modified, good-handling, mid-$30k 4 seat coupe profitable. Screw Nissan, and screw their Skyline when they finally pull their thumbs out of the butts long enough to finish designing and building the next generation GT-R and send it to us. I'd buy a regular Subaru WRX, but can't stand the thought of paying $25k for a car which handles no better than a base Lancer, or Sentra, or Corolla, or Scion xB! In fact, it might even handle worse!

What Mazda NEEDS to do (are you listening M-USA?) is take the Renesis engine and stuff it into a small, RWD coupe body, with a curb weight under 2700 lbs. Better still if they can get it to 2500-2600 with the aluminum suspension pieces from the MX-5, aluminum hood, aluminum roof, etc. Sell it at a LOW $20k price point and give US drivers something cool to play with when they get out of college. A hard top, Renesis-powered MX-5, if you will, and forget the extra seats and doors!

Ike makes a point about the early RX-7 being faster than its competition? An early 240Z would crush the little RX-7 in acceleration, and was great handling... in 1970! Even a 1975 280Z (not the stretched-body, 4 seat 280ZX) still had enough grunt to pull an RX-7 off of the corners. NISSAN managed to ruin the Z through no fault of anyone but themselves. The Porsche 924 (initially designed for VW), while not great in acceleration, was a screaming demon in the corners, and one Porsche Club instructor I know STILL uses one to school drivers in high dollar cars on the track. Road races don't start from a standing stop. By 1983, the Porsche 944 was on the scene, and managed to make the first-gen RX-7 look out-dated, and it offered 4 seats and reasonable luggage space! By the time Mazda had redesigned the RX-7 to respond to the bite that the entry-level Porsche 944 had taken out of its sales, the 944 had moved on to boost, and by 1986, was posting 0-60 times stock which would whack an RX-8 squarely between the eyes. To add insult, they were scathingly-fast in the corners too. Meanwhile, the Toyota Celica, initially conceived as a competitor to the Mustang, had morphed into the Celica Supra, and finally just the Supra, and combined Toyota reliability with, if not exciting, then at least decent handling. Mazda responded with a turbo FC, which WAS slightly faster than paint drying on a hot Phoenix sidewalk, but STILL slower than a 1986 944 Turbo, a 1987 Volvo turbo wagon, a 1984 Corvette, and virtually ever 911 since 1978. It might have outrun the Mustang GT of its era, but given that the pony car was hobbled with just 200 or so horsepower, that's not saying much.

Mazda's biggest selling point was that they handled GREAT, and sold for thousands less. Incidentally, this was also Datsun's selling point for the 240Z. And Mazda's selling point for the original Miata. Sense a trend here? By the time Mazda went to the FD, made the car actually AS FAST as its competitors (seriously, was the 924, with 4 seats, ever in the same market as the RX-7 with its two seats?) and went upscale in fit and finish, and bumped the performance through very careful design, the dollar-to-yen had shifted to the point where nearly ALL of the performance cars from Japan were suffering. I believe the quoted acceleration numbers were 5.5 seconds from 0-60, right, for a 92-96 FD? Stock, not modified. The Corvettes were faster. The BMW E36 M3, while not necessarily as fast from 0-60, was its equal on a road course, and wasn't as touchy to own (electrical issues and overheating come to mind) for about the same money.

With this history here in the US, you've got to admire Mazda for even jumping back into the water with a rotary. We bash 'em because we love 'em, and for $25k you WILL NOT find a better handling, 4-seat car in the world. The issue this time is that Mazda dreamed up an answer to a question that no-one was asking. "What if we gave it 4 big seats and 4 doors?" It's a concept which is looks nice on paper for Ford's bean-counters, but it hasn't translated into market dominance. Had Mazda released a 2600lb 2-door, 2-seat RX-7 with the Renesis, which by virtue of simply having less physical mass to accelerate, would have been a far QUICKER car, for the same $25k that the RX-8 starts at, then far more people who looked at the heavier, rougher-riding Z car might have been swayed into the Mazda fold. THEN, they could have released the RX-8 with "RX-7 agility but room for 4 adults" to standing ovations, and people who couldn't buy the new RX-7 due to a need for extra seats, would have suddenly found their "knight in shining armor". They wouldn't have needed the "wander in and test drive the car with the wierd doors" marketing approach.

Instead Mazda took a newly-redesigned and unproven engine of a type which hadn't been sold here for approximately 8 years, and stuck it into a heavy (by FC and FD standards) body, and capped it off with an entry system last referred to as "suicide doors" here in the US! The fact that a 3100 lb car with a 4.44 final drive and 6 firing cycles per rotor revolution doesn't get great gas mileage should hardly be a surprise to anyone. Yes 5.9 seconds to 60 is still decently fast. Yes the car is roughly the size of a 911 and can carry 4 adults. Yes the car has brilliant handling. Can any of you IMAGINE what the sales numbers would have been like for something with the same power, but only 2600 lbs? No one here was ASKING for the RX-8. We were all ASKING for the RX-7! Look at the more-expensive, heavier, and far less-refined 350Z's sales numbers for an idea.

Perhaps the Ford bean-counters didn't get it. Perhaps they still don't get "Zoom-zoom" (and judging from Ford's current line up, that's not much of a stretch). Maybe this was the only way that the Mazda engineers, who poured their hearts and souls into a spinning and orbiting lump of aluminum, could get the chance to hear its 9000 RPM song once more? In 2004, I didn't have a daughter, and would have bought an RX-7 immediately, even with the Z available, because, given the handling of the RX-8, a car with fewer pounds would likely have had acceleration to match the 350Z. A car like that would have sent Nissan back to the drawing board for more horsepower even sooner. A car like that could have run a 6-speed with a 4.10 rear gear set and STILL posted good acceleration numbers. And, from what Mazda's shown, could have been built for $25k, undercutting EVERY SPORTS CAR in the world! THAT, my friends, could have been the new RX-7s legacy.

I WILL still be getting an RX-8, because it's the closest thing I can get to a new RX-7... and it's still the best damn sports car for $25k. Period. Oh wait, it's the ONLY sports car for $25k!

Make friends with a Mazda engineer; shoot a Ford accountant today!

 

Wow, I didn't even know I had ADD until now! Thanks for the free test!

 

Dude, take some Ritalin, then go drive a mazdaspeed miata.

BTW, the one factor you're not mentioning is emissions. Because of the feds, they had to tune the renesis for emissions, and hence can't get as much power as they'd like from it.

 

Timma!

 

i rather look at 1/4 mile times than 0-60 in terms of acceleration which the the designers of the 7 wasnt totally aiming for ofcourse. ill still take the old FB, FC, anf FD's over the "new 7s" because we all know mazda will not design a simular true bred low down sports car again.

 

isnt it "way OFF topic"?

 

Actually, power and emissions weren't on my list of complaints because, well, I don' t have a complaint about them. 232 hp in a 2600 lb car would be just fine. It's almost enough for a 3047 lb car (it'll have to do, won't it?).

Another off-topic idea: A 0-60 time of 5.9 seconds versus 6.1 seconds simply means that the track could have been dusty during the second test. Or the clutch could have been slipped a fraction of a second longer on launch. Or there was a tad more wheelspin... Mazda still claims 5.9 seconds, and I think they did it on the stock tires. A set of good R-compounds and I think it'll launch harder than that, if that's the sort of thing someone wants to use as a benchmark.

"Way of topic" ROFLMAO! I didn't see that before, but that's really funny! I wonder if there's a way to fix that?

 

the blue background with white lettering hurt my eyes after about 2 minutes of reading..but i do see your point.

 

Okay, I fixed the "Way of topic" title... It was late, I was tired, blah, blah, blah.

Mazdaspeed Miata? Blah! Same horsepower as the new MX-5, only the handling isn't as good? What's to like about that. Granted it comes with a turbo, which everyone assumes is like giving Viagra to your grandfather, but that doesn't mean there's a ton of power left in that setup without drastic changes.

Once you've driven an RX-8, even the new Miata feels like a poor country cousin by comparison. The Miata is more "tippy", and off-throttle, the rear doesn't want to track as well through the corners as the 8's does. On-throttle, the Miata rear plants, but the front doesn't dig in and grip as well as the 8. They're still fun little cars, and worthy of consideration for anyone searching for the eternal fountain of youth, but a Miata isn't for me.

Actually I think I'm afraid that the wind will remove what's left of the hair on the top of my head! :D

 

that that was a long self-serving rant. The problem being is you don't represent the entire demographic for this car.

 

If I feel that I'm "right" from my point of view, does anyone else's matter?

 

there's a lot to agree with, but, people buy for different reasons. As much as I would have liked to see a 7 come out, I wouldn't/couldn't buy it. Needed the back seats. Could still live without the weight and complexity of the rear doors, my dog is agile enough to get in without them.

Also, not that market research is a perfect science, but Mazda did the research and it told them that the 8 was the way to go. Not the first time marketing made the wrong recomendation and far from the last.

 

Your posts must average 6000 words per post.

 

sorry if im insulting you by saying this...

in your User Control Panel, under Edit Options, you can change the display from "plasma" to "oivar" (at the VEEERY bottom)...i find the gray background with black lettering much easier on the eyes.

 

Only Icon I could think of for beating a dead horse.
Your post was nicely written I'll admit but right now the market for most sports cars is slowly dwindling because of gas price's. Now if Mazda for some reason pulls a modern marvel of finding a way to get 25mph city outa the 8 then twice as many people will glance at her. /shrug/

 

Actually

The Mazda is dead.

 

Isn't that the default option?

 

CX-7's engine makes 274 horsepower and reaches 25 mpg, in a heavier chassis! Granted it ain't a rotary, and that's part of the pleasure of the car gone down the drain, but at least it WOULD make for a much faster accelerating car.

BTW-Did anyone notice in the video reviews of the Fast and Furious:Tokyo Drift cars that nearly all of those cars were SLOWER than stock in a straight line? Especially the Evo they used. The RX-8 was just pitiful on acceleration... I'm surprised they were even able to drift that car at all with the 19" wheels on it!