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What happened to the rotary. The only one I ever owned was an old R1 with the R2 engine, but I had great fun blowing the doors off of muscle cars back in the '70s. I got rid of it after the second set of brakes, because it would go like a bandit but wouldn't stop so good. It was the only car I have ever owned that would get to 170 in less than a mile.
For the person who thought I was talking about an RX, I owned an R1 compact sedan, and it was not the stock engine, which the seller told me came out of an R2, probably an RX-2. It even had headers, though I never opened them up. I suspect the noise would have shattered glass at 100 yards. I took it apart to see what it was like, and it was the simplest engine you can imagine. It was just a sandwich, with O-ring seals around all the bolts. Whoever had it apart before omitted a bunch of the o-rings, but it ran fine.
It was still quite a hot rod, and I clocked it at 128 mph in the quarter, still accelerating strongly. I have a lot of trouble imagining that a modern rotary could be called underpowered. The stock engine supposedly peaked at 7000 rpm, but the one I had ran fine to 9000. The guy may have done some balancing work on the rotors.
I bought it used in 1976. I think the body was a 1971. It had been built up for the racing circuit, but the owner ran into a divorce and had to give it up.
BTW, there have been 170 mph sedans on the road. I had an uncle that owned one in mid '60s. I think it was a Lincoln? I remember it was a big tuna boat sedan, with an even bigger motor. Going 170 mph on bias ply tires would have been a scary thing.
Not really. It's about perfect for it's size and role. Way more powerful then the little British roadsters it is meant to emulate, like MGBs, TR6s and Austin Healeys.
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Yea, I've been looking at Mazda's and test drove a CX-5 on Friday.
