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This is Jeff Kiesel at Orange County's El Toro air base back in 2009, storming through the cones in a 370 horsepower turbocharged Mazda 13b-powered "Bugeye" Sprite. It's 74.4 seconds and 1,810 pounds of absurdly precise fury. More »
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Wankel's Rotary engine found little following in Europe after the demise of NSU, but Mazda embraced the technology like RX-8 owners embrace 2-for-1 Castrol deals. Here's a 1960's educational animation from Mazda explaining why the rotary engine is an advancement on that old piston-powered buggy your grandma drives. More »
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A Japanese photoblogger stumbled across this field of ten first-generation Mazda Cosmo sports cars in the countryside, slowly dissolving into the earth. It's obvious someone doesn't realize what's in their backyard. More »
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Here's the first interior photo of the eight-wheel, dual-rotary juggernaut first profiled here weeks ago, and now dubbed the Greatest LeMons Racer of All Time, or GLCOAT. This is only the start of the engineering mystery underneath its fiberglass skin. More »
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We're not ones to suggest there's such a thing as too much when it comes to homebuilding vehicles. But an eight-wheel "sports" car with dual Mazda rotary engines, Jaguar differentials and a rat's nest of unfinished business? Someone cry uncle. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5687360&view=rss&microfeed=true Mazda's next-gen "Sky" version of the rotary engine will get "drastically improved" fuel economy. [GoAuto] More »
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Supposedly, when one person accidentally stuck their Hershey's bar in somebody else's jar of Jiff, a new taste sensation was born. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe 12A-powered Corolla wagon is also an amalgam that might prove equally tasty. More »
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The slow-selling refreshed Mazda RX-8 is on its way out according to a source at Mazda HQ. Fortunately, a new Mazda RX-7 is rumored to be in the works. Wanks for the memories! [Motor Trend] More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! You say picking one of two choices hurts your brain? Fine! We'll give you four choices today! More »
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The Wankel engine has always proved that Mazda marches to a different beat. As it's getting toward convertible weather, Nice Price or Crack Pipe has a flambe-painted '89 drop-top at a price you might find hard to beat. More »
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Like the Porsche 944, we were surprised by how poorly many RX-7s fare in the 24 Hours Of LeMons (though the succeed/fail breakdown seems to be an all-or-nothing sort of deal, with few falling in the middle third of the standings). Fuel system ailments and fragile suspensions seem to be the weak points. More »
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When an automaker builds a car named the Cosmo Big Run Genteel, you know they're going to make some good television advertisements. Yes, we're talking about Mazda here! More »
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Every year we hear of a new rumor involving Mazda's long departed RX-7 making a zombie-like comeback, but we've now hearing we should expect a new 1.6-liter rotary RX-7 concept for the Tokyo Motor Show. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street Bonus Edition! We're back with more Tomsk photos from behind the Orange Curtain. More »
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Say you've got a beater Mazda RX-7 with a good engine on one side of the garage and a clean Matra Murena with a miserable Simca engine on the other side. What do you do? More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Let's return to Engines Not Found In Nature projects, shall we? More »
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You know how most first-gen RX-7s got blown up, wrecked, or otherwise hooned to death, with the scattered survivors slowly fading into beaterness? Not this one! More »
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We all love the Hurst Olds 442, of course, but 96% of us thought that a million bucks was just too high for one, last time we had to choose between Nice Price and Booth Numbah Two. Today we've got another beloved classic, and the price is much lower. Is it low enough? More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. We've had a real Mazda shortage around these parts, probably because the early rotaries tended to blow out the apex seals and/or suck gas and thus didn't weather the decades quite as well as their piston-engine competition. There's been an '81 RX-7 (plus one non-Wankel '82 Mazda) and that's been it until today. I've decided to go deeper into the 80s to enable more RX-7s to qualify for this series, because they were great cars on the street (and on the racetrack) and deserve our respect.
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When's the last time you saw one of these? This damn-near-perfect first-year Mazda Cosmo didn't go out on the track, but it did grab more attention than most of the quadrillion-dollar Ferraris, just sitting there parked. More »
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Here's an example of an engine we couldn't really include in the Workhorse Engine of the Day series, because in spite of its incredible power-to-weight ratio and overall screamin' glory, the rotary engine is just not bulletproof enough to be considered a true workhorse. All that's changed with the new EOTD series, however, and we can now celebrate the nonreciprocating awesomeness that is the Mazda 13B. In truth, all the Mazda Wankels are variations on the same design; we just selected the 13B as the flavor that was built for the longest period, 1973 through 2002. Cosmos, RX-7s, 7-second Starlets, you name it, the 13B has powered it. Make the jump for our favorite hypnotic GIF animation. [Mazda, Wikipedia] More »
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Technically, the Peugeot Mi16 beat the Mercedes-Benz 6.9 in last Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll, but we're talking 327 to 317 votes here. When all is said and done, however, France still needs to take on Britain in a PCH Superpower Challenge... but we're postponing that apocalyptic battle for another day, because tipster EdNiedermeyer sent in a mighty Wankelized contender from not-often-seen-in-PCH Japan (earning a half-credit towards a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt in the process), and we've found a Rotarian opponent that stacks up pretty well against it. So throw those pistons in the trash and stagger into the sumo ring to face your 800-pound opponent, because it's Rotary Swap Hell Day! More »
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Stop the presses! Italy has just won the First Ever Jalopnik Project Car Hell Superpower Showdown, with the 1JZ-powered Portuguese Barn Find '59 Maserati beating the Subaru-powered 4CV in a 55-45 split. Today we're going to look at two cars that don't fit neatly into a common category, yet give off about the same number of counts per minute on the Jalopnik Coolness Geiger Counter™. More »
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You thought you had seen the last of the 2008 Mazda Furai concept didn't you? We certainly had enough coverage on the lusty concept that didn't make Popular Mechanics' Top 10 New Cars of Detroit list. What with the teaser photos, track video, live reveal shots, and super sneaky close ups - but no, we're not done yet. How about video of the ethanol powered Nagare-gasm running on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show? Would you like that? Yeah, we thought you would. More »
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Not that it's a surprise to anybody, but the new RX-8 looks a lot like the preview shots we brought you earlier. Shown in a very Subaru shade of blue, the RX-8 is in fact destined for an update. Most of the changes happen in the nose with slightly revised headlights, a new grill treatment, the hood has a bigger rotary shaped indent, and of course the trend of the day - faux side vents. Sadly those side vents can only be attributed to additional horsepower of the psychological kind. Check out the live galleries and there's an exhaustive press release below the fold. More »
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We just can't get enough of the 2008 Mazda Furai concept. We brought you preview pics, video, and live floor shots. That's all well and good, but thanks to some overzealous designers, we now have pictures showing off the whole enchilada. Engine bay, interior, detailed close ups... we want it; we want it bad. More »
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We brought you the first shots of the 2009 Mazda Furai Concept a couple weeks ago, and some hot video yesterday, now we've got photos from the floor of the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. In person the Furai is poetry even without the motion - long and low and wide, it is a monster in Nagare clothing. All it needs is me in a matching fire suit and helmet. More »
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Here's another car for which I am unable to provide an exact model year; judging from the side moldings and air dam appearance, I can say it looks like a first-generation car from the 1981-83 period. Mazda rotary fanatics (are they known as Rotarians?), feel free to weigh in with your opinions on the topic. In any case, what we have here is a type of car that was once quite common but is now regrettably rare. More »
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The 2TG-equipped Corolla cruised to a reasonably solid victory over the tubbed Nova in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. And that's fine, but that Toyota makes us feel like doing an all-Japanese, all-torture selection for today. As always, the problem with Japanese Hell Projects is that the cars themselves start out being pretty reliable and well-built, and in most cases parts aren't very hard to find. That can mean only one thing: turbocharging! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=311221&view=rss&microfeed=true When you don't have to worry about apex seals or fuel economy- say, in IMSA racing- that rotary engine suddenly makes a lot more sense than it does for grocery-getters (though we don't listen to the anti-rotary crowd's propaganda; we're wiggy for Wankels around these parts, in spite of their drawbacks, though we'd like them even more if Mazda would bring back the Cosmo). In addition to the Patsy soundtrack, this 1991 ad also features lots of artsy images of gloomy drivers and crew members cursing non-Mazda cars that have fallen to pieces. More »
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With the Olds blasting the Chrysler by a decisive margin in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, we figured it was time to go across the water and get a couple of seriously cool- yet sanity-shreddingly difficult- sporty cars for you to choose from today. And, just because no choices are easy in Hell, we're going to make you choose between German rotary and Detroit V8 power. More »
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Stop the presses! Last Friday's Project Car Hell entries are locked in a seemingly unbreakable tie! At the time of this writing, the Volare "Road Runner" and the Ventura "GTO" each have 150 votes, possibly indicating that a big engine is just as cool as a 4-speed when you're dealing with a Malaise Era pseudo-musclecar. Or something. In any case, let's move on to a pair of vehicles that remain untainted by unfair comparisons to a Golden Age... More »
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Hard to believe, but it's been forty years since Mazda started selling vehicles with rotary engines. Their marketers aren't trumpeting their pride over that milestone in the US of A, probably because the '67 models weren't sold here, but it's a different story in Japan. You can get a special 40th Anniversary Edition RX-8 over there; the rest of us will have to settle for the cool Wankelated graphics on Mazda's Japanese site, which has a nice slideshow of rotary Mazdas over the decades. [mazda.co.jp] More »
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Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll was won by the '71 Datsun 510 wagon, which beat the Gremlin (though not by an ass-whooping margin). Today we're going to go seriously low-buck, with a pair of projects available for a mere five Benjamins... or maybe even less, depending on the ruthlessness of your dealmaking chops... More »
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In the late 1960s, Citroën was hoping to build a rotary-powered small car. They got together with NSU and formed a Luxembourg-based company to develop the new Wankel powerplant, then made a few hundred Heuliez-bodied Ami coupes equipped with their proud new rotaries. These vehicles, officially designated the M35 and considered to be prototypes, were supplied to selected high-mileage Citroën buyers for long-term testing use. Sadly, the rotary Citroëns didn't work out, for the usual reasons of high fuel consumption and/or emissions, and Citroën dropped the whole idea. What if they'd stuck with the idea and Mazda hadn't? Imagine an alternate universe in which the RX-7 is French! [Citroenet] More »
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Everyone knows the DeLorean man is someone special- hey, look at all the attention his luggage gets from the sniff-dogs at the airport- but sometimes he needs his ride to stand out from the rest of the stainless-steel white-powder-financed gullwingers. Thus, the rotary-powered DeLorean! Just drop in a '90 Mazda 20B engine cranking out about 300 horses and you'll be able to outrun the fastest "Back To The Future" jokes with ease. – Murilee Martin More »
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Many automotive players (including General Motors and Mercedes) have tried to make the Wankel engine work for them (as we all know, the AMC Pacer was originally supposed to pack rotary power), but only Mazda has really managed to make cars stuffed with the simple- yet maddeningly hard to get right- little nonreciprocating mill actually turn a profit. Just making the rotary comply with emissions requirements and get not-incredibly-sucky fuel economy has been an engineering nightmare, yet Mazda's pulled it off (well, the emissions part, anyway). Here's Mazda's corporate-slick-yet-interesting history of the rotary engine and Mazda's role in making it a successful vehicle powerplant. – Murilee Martin More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=259832&view=rss&microfeed=true Don't understand Japanese? No problemo- the two most important words in this Japanese ad are uttered in English: Rotary Engine! The early Cosmos were rare indeed, being built by hand and all, which is a damn shame- just look at that thing on the track! – Murilee Martin More »
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