By the early 1970's Mazda had proved its commitment
to the rotary engine, in 1971 alone Mazda building over
200,000 rotary-powered vehicles.
However the road for
the rotary has never been smooth, and for Mazda things
took a turn for the worse when the oil crisis of 1973
turned peoples attention to the poor fuel economy of the
rotary.
To remain viable as a company Mazda was forced to concentrate
on manufacturing traditional piston driven engines, however
the engineers never gave up on their dream of creating
a sports car using rotary power, and in 1978 (following
2 years of extensive development code named Project X605),
they introduced to the world the fabulous RX-7.
While the car was released in the US in 1978, it took
another year for it to reach Australian shores, and what
an impact it had, many traditional Holden and Ford V8
buyers deserting their traditional brands to savour the
exciting new RX-7.
Development of the car had been led by project head Moriyuki
Watanabe, (who would eventually become chairman of the
board), and unlike the complex and expensive to manufacture
Mazda Cosmo, engineers created a simple and more affordable
sports car.
Certainly the concept of an affordable sports car was
welcomed by the motoring public, however Mazda's cost
cutting measures did leave the car with some minor shortcomings.
First up, the Mazda used re-circulating-ball steering
instead of a more-expensive rack-and-pinion setup, and
Mazda settled for rear drum brakes rather than discs.
But perhaps the biggest disappointment for the enthusiast
was that Mazda decided to use a live-axle located by four
trailing links and a Watt linkage rather than a fully
independant setup.
The original 12A two-rotor engine displaced a mere
1146 cubic centimeters, developed a mere 100bhp at
6,000 rpm and 105 pound-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm
- although production modifications saw power increase
to 135bhp. In all, some 500,000 original RX-7's were
built, making it, by a huge margin, the best-selling
rotary-engine car of all time.
