brianw

Attn: All rotary enthusiasts! It was come to my attention that the History Channel has aperently overlooked this engine!I was watching a show on the history of the sports car and not even a mention of the RX7! I went to thier site and found a tiny little paragraph on the wenkel engine,That's it! If this concerns you here's the link http://historychannel.com/. You'll have to register then I started a thread about this in the Moder Marvels Group.Let's not let this go unnoticed!
Moderators Fell free to post this on all forums as you see fit. Thank You all.

Rx7carl

Sorry Brian, when I copied this to the 2nd gen forum, it locked this automatically, I did not notice that till now, again sorry.

Carl
N00berator.

brianw

What do you mean by locked?Thanks though. I really thought I'd get a better response here,after all our pride and joy is being overlooked by History.I guess that's not a big deal to most people here but it really bothers me

Rx7carl

It means that no one could post a response. Its now open again (duh).

Bothers me too btw.

BrianHeston

Either the History Channel, or the Discovery Channel has an episode that they've aired on engines, and in that one, the rotary got little more than a slightly re-worked version of the "How Things Work" explanation before they moved on. It is a little irritating that our babies are being overlooked, but with the attention the Rx8 has brought back around, I think that'll change soon. It may not have been the huge seller, or had the immediate ressurection effect that we were hoping for, but I think it'll work it's way in to the niche it was designed for. Once this happens, there'll be a new group of people, along with some old friends of our "old school" rotary community that will help correct little oversights like this. So continue to post these things, and we'll continue to fight the evil tyrany of the oppressive piston community!

Brian

brianw

I Think If we go to the link I attached and post repleys on the thread I started we may get a response. This is their message board so I think they reveiw the threads.The longest thread I saw had only 6 post so with nearly a miilion members here I beleive we can beat that!But it will take some effort on our part.I am asking for anyone whom this concerns to please go there a post you're displeasure.I am afraid that the lake of that will result in confirming that they have not overlooked anything of value to the history of the sports car.

anthrax

When it comes to sports cars and North America, the V8 Rulles all.

When it comes to sports cars most people are sooooo close minded.

This shows a poor effort on the part of the reserchers and fact checkers that put the documentry together.

The history chanel has lost a great deal of integrity in my eyes

Sterling

Ehh. What about Speedvision? I have yet to see a show dedicated to the Wankle. Course it's all Nascar **** owned, now. But just 18 months ago when it was all about sportscars, I looked and looked, but never did see a show featuring the Rx-7 as a side dish, let alone main course.

A history show will only demonstrate examples that are still in the path of a direction that the future is obviously going to open to. The only time you ever see an example of a failed attempt or dead-ended invention is when the inventor has either stumbled upon a gate-way discovery whilest working on his failed attempt, or he himself had gone on to do something great that was in the path of the main.
-Not by any means am I calling the rotary any of these, but it certainly seems to be treated as such by history. Everybody and their brother (car manufacturers) had bought limited rights to use Wankles in something. But when the oil embargo happened half-finished plans and drawings were dropped like wet socks never to be picked up again.

Dr. Wankle will live again when they start manufacturing inexpensive, safe, user-friendly hydrogen engines where the simplicity of the rotary will be the most obvious choice.

n/arotary

iTrader: (1)

I saw that show and I was very upset. They skipped from the 240z to the Miata, and didn't mention anything about the RX-7. They acted like no sports cars were produced between the two cars, and that the Miata brought back the sucess of the sports car.

If you look at the production numbers, the RX-7 outsold the Miata according to the U.S. sales figures. The RX-7 sold consistantly for each year of the First Generation, where as the Miata slowly declined.

Here are the RX-7 sales numbers up until the Miata was produced.
1978: 19,299
1979: 54,853
1980: 43,731
1981: 43,418
1982: 48,889
1983: 52,514
1984: 55,696
1985: 53,810
1986: 56,243
1987: 38,345
1988: 27,814
1989: 16,249

Here are the Miata Numbers.

1989 23052
1990 35944
1991 31240
1992 24964
1993 21481
1994 21400
1995 20174
1996 18408
1997 17218

Just pointing out that the RX-7 was more a sales sucess for a sports car than the Miata was, and should have been mentioned on the History of sports cars.

Terror7

When will people learn!!! Its always been overlooked, Thankyou mazda for not being so stupid.

10,000

Amen Terror7, I am so proud of Mazda for keeping faith in the rotary, and at times I can hardly believe that if I was so inclined to go into serious debt I could stroll down to my nearest Mazda dealer and drive home a brand new rotary powered vehicle. It's almost surreal, last couple of years I had almost convinced myself that the rotary's time had ended but it looks like it could be here to stay. <--- me patiently waiting for people to wreck their RX-8's so I can dump a REnesis in my 1st gen, with a fat honkin' turbo.......

brianw

Me too, I can hardly wait. I even called the dealer butt hey are 6 grand for the block alone

Richard Miller

If nobody knows what we have, then we can take them by surprise. Kind of the TOP SECRET military hardware that you only hear rumors about.

In reality my little town is afraid of the Wankle. I have a pretty much stock 12a and most people won't race or they think my car is hella fast. So I drive civilized to keep them guessing.

Nick-7

I have posted on the History channel web site and was shocked that there were not many posts.
Come on people post on the history channel it will take just a few minutes.
The more people that post will show that there is interest in this topic, which might lead to the channel making a program.


I wish that mazda would just release a renesis crate motor fairly cheap. If these motors were cheap than people would probably start to swap them in whatever they would fit in. If mazda would sell a motor and maybe a kit that would allow the motor to be bolted into any of the rx-7's.

85rotarypower

I would give anything to see an RX-7 race against any other car out there on TV. All the races have either the ricer civics or big american V8 powered cars. I think this is because the RX-7 was too good and was either outlawed or severly hampered by restrictions in almost all racing groups. I think this says something about how good the rotary really is.

brianw

I've been kinda disapointed myself. I really like this club and all, but come on. 357 veiws here and only 4 people have posted there. We won't get our show that way.

rotary_neubie

I would love to see a program on the history of rotaries and or RX7's. Probably with the release of the new RX8, a program, you would think, would be made on the history of the rotary, or something along those lines.

excitingleopard

Yeah the seven kicks ***...


...unless you run into that annoying thing called V-tech.


I will post on the history channel forum and straighten out those bastards! Although I don't really care that much... RX-7's are here to stay and that's all I care about.

oni-dori

ok, ok... ill try to post there and see what happens.

i guess it is pretty sad that we live in a country that celebrates freedom but has a very narrow outlook when i t comes to automotive technology. there have been more priorities on economy cars, alternative fuels, and luxury. how many sports cars have domestic manufacturers produced since the first automobile? europeans have concentrated on sports cars since day one and the japanese makes are coming up with more exciting models every year. even the super compacts in japan have aftermarket support. what do we have? dinosaur v8s that soak up a lot of gas and not much else.

brianw

oni-dori, Thanks for the post. Please do follow the link and post there also.

oni-dori

already did, but im not sure if i posted on the right thread. im kinda new to thc format of their discussion board.

o yea, that's a really big picture. how'd you do that?

BIG J MIXALOT

we should go find them and ruff them up and make them make a show on the car for a hour

brianw

You have to save a pic online. I use test area 51. start a thread, load the pic in the attachment spot. then opem that (click on it). When it opens go to the address on the top of screen, cut it useing you're edit botton. Now go to you're sig and paste it [img][/img] in between those