Last year's Mazda RX-8 is today's pick at Bring a Traile
- From the 1970s onwards, Mazda was known
for its Wankel engines.
- The RX-8 sports coupe was the brand's last
car with a Wankel engine in the USA.
- This example from last year is the coveted
updated model and offers a stripped-down look with cloth seats and no
sunroof.
German engineer Felix
Wankel invented the rotary engine, but his Nazi past taints his reputation, so
we'd rather give credit to Kenichhi Yamamoto. He's the Japanese engineer (and
later head of Mazda) who put the engine in the Mazda Cosmo, making the rotary
engine commercially viable. For the most part.
The rotary engine has
become part of Mazda's soul, and while it may have some operational flaws, it
at least has real character. And this low-mileage 2011 RX-8 for sale
at Bring a Trailer (which,
like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) has all the
spinning-metal-Dorito spirit any rotary engine fan could want.
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The RX-8 is one of the
most overlooked sports cars ever, partly because it filled such big shoes. IT
followed the third-generation twin-turbo RX-7, which was beautiful and wildly
turbocharged, if a little brittle. The RX-8 was a better sorted product, but
slower and less hectic. Legends aren't made of such things. With the Nissan
350Z coming around with far more power for about the same money, you really had
to want a rotary engine.
The RX-8 also used the
platform for the third-generation Mazda MX-5, which is itself an overlooked
Most people agree that the NC MX-5 is the worst of the four generations of
that range, but that's like eating lunch at the fourth-best taco truck in California.
It's still going to be great .
The RX-8 combined this
agile chassis with a lightweight Renesis twin-rotor engine producing 239 hp and
just 250 Nm of torque. With a curb weight of just over 1360 kg, however, this
was enough to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.9 seconds (after the engine
had been well run in).
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On the minus side: 19 mpg. And
about a quart of oil every 3,000 miles or so . On the plus side: a rev limit of 9,000 rpm
and an engine that runs so smoothly you'd think it was drinking cream instead
of hydrocarbons.
This example has just
17,000 miles on the clock and is finished in classic red with black cloth
seats. It has a limited-slip rear differential and no sunroof (the Sport models
didn't have one), so it's the more performance-oriented version. As a later-in-production
model, it benefits from additional chassis stiffening, revised suspension
geometry and a lower final drive. This is as spirited as an RX-8 can be.
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Mazda technically still builds rotary engines for the European market, as the range-extender version of the MX-30 has a tiny 830cc single-rotor engine. It purrs like a pencil sharpener and allows for an extra 300 miles of range. In addition, Mazda has also started building 13B blocks and components for those looking to restore an FD-generation RX-7 twin-turbo.
Final-Year Mazda RX-8 Is Today's Pick on Bring a Trailer (caranddriver.com)