THEN & NOW
Rotary engine spins out sports car success
Mazda's trademark engine re-appears in the new RX-8
By Bob English
Thursday, March 20, 2003

THEN

I crested Mosport's notorious blind turn two in fourth gear, with the Cosmo Sport's twin-rotor 10A 'Wankel' engine droning like a bass fiddle's plucked G-string, and, as they say, a song in my heart.

I then dialled in some steering. As the slack was taken up, the skinny Dunlop tires began to curve the neat little Mazda car down the hill towards the line that arcs across the corner's double apexes. But as the suspension began to load up, the rear wheels let it be known that even at a modest 100 km/h, they weren't entirely happy following the fronts and were thinking about stepping out and leading the way instead. In response to that little 'uh oh' flutter in my belly, I eased the throttle and unwound the steering a bit, which kept them in their place and also put me firmly in mine.

Get a grip, I thought. This is great fun but you're at the wheel of a 36-year-old vehicle here, a car built the year you wrote your first motoring story for a newspaper and one of the rarest production cars in the world - just 1,176 were built between 1967 and 1972. And it's fresh from the restoration shop in California to boot. Doing something stupid with it isn't going to do much for your popularity. And anyway, by this time I'd already spent an hour getting to know this delightful little car and it was time to pull in, switch off the key and think about telling its story.

The Cosmo Sport won't be familiar to many because it was never sold in North America, but it's a corporate icon for Mazda: Its first production rotary-engined car. It heads an unbroken genealogical line to its latest rotary-engined flagship sports car, the RX-8. In the early 1960s Mazda hitched its star to the then unproven technology of the rotary engine, literally dreamt up by Dr. Felix Wankel, a German, in the years following World War One. Germany's NSU developed the design, which employs a triangular rotor that oscillates in a roughly figure-eight shaped chamber. Mazda bought in, but soon discovered it was a long way from being a practical proposition. Charged with solving its problems was a young engineer named Kenichi Yamamoto and by 1967 he had created a workable engine. But it took many more years and the near bankruptcy of Mazda before the rotary engine was completely viable. By this time Mazda had shifted to conventional reciprocating engines for most of its products. The rotary engine (which won the Le Mans 24 Hour race for Mazda in 1991) still powers Mazda's special cars though, such as the upcoming RX-8, likely as much for its symbolism of the company's history as for any practical considerations. Rather like Porsche and Subaru sticking to horizontally opposed motors.

The Cosmo Sport in the accompanying photos is owned by Mazda Canada. It's a 1967 right-hand-drive model and was imported and used by then Mazda Canada executive John Brown. Over the years it spent time in the Ontario Science Centre, the motor museum in Oshawa and in the lobby of Mazda headquarters in the U.S. It was returned here a decade ago in non-running condition, and once again came into the care of Mazda Product Assurance Centre coordinator Danny Manning, who had already placed his stamp on it.

As a Mazda new-hire many years before, Manning was getting the car ready for a show when he managed to put a huge dent in one door. Quick removal of the inner panel, followed by a short, sharp punch popped the dent out and nobody was ever the wiser. Manning was keen to get the car operating again, and did some work on it, but last year Mazda got serious and shipped it to California.

It was in California where Jim Mederer of Race Beat oversaw its 'functional' rather than 'concours' restoration. The car now looks good and drives well, much like you'd expect a well-maintained old sports car to. Mederer, who has been deeper into its workings than anybody in the past 30 years, says the Cosmo is a mix of old and new. "There's a lot of cleverness in it and a lot of clunkiness," he says. "The engine is the most significant thing, it's extraordinary for its time."

To my eye it's a good-looking car, with flashbacks of '50s gee-whiz. Overall length of this front-engined, rear-driver is 4,130 mm, making it bigger than today's Miata, but the Cosmo is lighter at 958 kg. Suspension is by double A-arms up front with a DeDion setup in the rear and it has disc/drum brakes.

The smooth, but not very strong, twin-rotor engine displaces a nominal 982cc and is rated at 110 hp. Later versions made 128 hp at 7,000 rpm and 103 lb-ft of torque at 5,000 revs. It has a 5-speed manual gearbox, which I discovered after puzzling out the O/T (overdrive top) lettering on the shift diagram. It's a very nicely equipped car with a full suite of instruments, leather bucket seats and a skinny wood-rimmed steering wheel.

It's a wonderful car and kudos to Mazda Canada for keeping it and getting it running again - and letting me drive it.

NOW

The latest Mazda to employ the company trademark rotary engine is the RX-8, which embodies a more practical approach to sporting car design without compromising what this type of car is all about.

It follows in the tread marks of the RX-7, generations of which were enjoyed by enthusiasts around the world, and which was sold here up into the late 1990s. This new Mazda sports car, however, delivers the same level of driving excitement in a package that is designed to make it easier for many to justify and live with.

The RX-8 is actually a new take on the grand touring (GT) approach to design, with its extra pair of rear-hinged half-doors that provide access to a rear seat suitable for two adult passengers, and a useful-sized rear luggage compartment.

Powering the RX-8 is the latest RENESIS version of Mazda's rotary engine, a twin-rotor unit, which will rev to more than 9,000 rpm and produces 250 hp at 8.500 revs and 159 lb-ft of torque at 5,500 rpm. A 6-speed manual gearbox gets the power to the rear wheels. The RX-8 has 4-wheel independent suspension and classic 50/50 weight distribution, along with all the creature comforts you could ask for.

It's a worthy successor to both the Cosmo and the RX-7.

 

neat article.

...it's too bad he hasn't yet driven the RX-8 so he could rave about its charms as well. :D

 

heheee g-string, hehee. :D