I don't know how much of the RX-8's struggles had to do with it being overpriced. Agreed the power level is such that it can't compete head-to-head in performance with the Nissan 350/370Z. But it was always a good bit cheaper, plus it had a more useful back seat. I think it definitely hurt that as power levels increased in the competition, the RENESIS stayed about the same over seven model years.

There was so much negative publicity surrounding the RX-8 when it launched that I don't think it ever recovered from that. There were the stories of all the dyno runs showing that production cars were way down on power from the advertised level followed by Mazda's adjustment of the advertised specs. There were stories of premature engine failures, complaints of flooded engines and the famously bad rotary fuel mileage. I guess Mazda fixed some of these problems over the RX-8's run, but the negative image remained.

Mazda may not make the exact same mistake twice, but there were a lot of similarities in the mistakes they made with the FD and RX-8. (Both had reputations for baffling dealer service departments, among other things.) Mazda has a deep emotional tie to the rotary so I don't know if they're always looking objectively at the best way of marketing it, or whether to abandon it entirely.

I also think that the rotary may just be too quirky and demanding for the average driver for daily use. To me, this suggests that trying to make a cheap, high-volume rotary sports car today may just be foolish. Especially now that piston engines have become lower maintenance than ever before. A lot of buyers just can't deal with the idea that they have to check their oil regularly in 2010.

Maybe this 16X will be the answer, and maybe Mazda will pull off a stunner with the next rotary sports car. I hope they do.

 

^ i agree. i hope it amazes me and i cant wait to see what they come up with

 

You know last year at 7stock the head of Mazda USA PR (forgot his name) personally told me that Mazda isn't going to make another Rotary after the Rx8 stops being produced, because the rotary just can't compete with piston engines nowadays in terms of power and fuel economy.

I think he was just BSing me because there is a lot of evidence to prove otherwise

 

Wow if it looks anything like the pic in that link it will be a horribly ugly machine and difficult to mod aesthetically.

I hope to God they go with more classical styling.

 

when the RX8 released, it was plagued with problems. But, in it's defense, the Renesis was an all new motor design. They fixed and improved what they could, but like you said, the damage was done. The RX8 is in the same price point as the 350/370Z, Mustang GT, Genesis Coupe, etc, which hurt it since it couldn't compete with the power. The FD was a disaster that almost killed Mazda. Those kinds of problems won't be seen again as Mazda has learned from them. Under normal driving, the rotary burns 1qt per 3000 miles, which is the standard acceptance for piston motors too. I can see Mazda getting around an oil problem with a bigger oil pan. Only time will tell. We won't know anything until Mazda announces it

 

I agree the RX-8 is no longer competitive in terms of horsepower with those other cars, though it wasn't too far behind the competition when it launched in 2004. For example, the RX-8 was priced below the S2000 and offered similar horsepower in 2004. Mazda should have found a way to offer some decent increases in 7 model years.

Maybe the oil consumption hasn't annoyed too many RX-8 owners; I don't know. But most decent modern piston engines don't consume a drop of oil between oil changes. As a result, I think a lot of today's car owners no longer bother checking their oil. In the years that I've owned my FCs, my wife has had a '96 Accord, an '01 Integra GS-R and an '06 Infiniti M35x and we've never added a drop of oil to any of them, despite me checking the oil level regularly. (On the other hand, my '02 Dodge Caravan does burn a little oil sometimes, but then it's a junky Chrysler product...)

Aside from some reliability problems, the real issue with the FD was market timing. Mazda launched it to compete with upscale sports cars from Nissan, Toyota and Subaru at an unfortunate moment when the U.S. economy suddenly went into recession and the premium sports car market was about to nosedive. Also in the early 1990s, there were still a lot of buyers who thought the idea of an expensive Japanese car was a little crazy. Every one of those high-end Japanese sports cars disappeared by the end of 1996 and at least two of them (300ZX and Supra) were great cars. Mazda couldn't have predicted the state of the economy when it began development of the FD, but it should have made sure the car was reliable.

It's very tough for Mazda to make a go of the rotary engine since they've been the only company investing in its development for 30 years or so now. Is it a little foolish for them to press on? Yes. But I do hope they do.

 

i agree with your last statement. piston engines have been around since steam. look at all of the years they have had to make them reliable.

look at how long mazda has had to develop the rotary. its amazing the progress and with 21st century i think the 16x will take off.

 

I think for now I'll just stick with my FCs. Reliable fun.

 

Poor sales? Compared to what? You know the Rx-8 sold as well as the 1st and 2nd gen Rx-7?

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2010/08...n-uk-less.html

Over 186 thousand units in 7 years for a niche car with an engine that has poor fuel economy and low torque by modern standards. I'd call that success. Yeah there were a lot of recalls and design flaws, but in terms of sheer numbers it wasn't a bad run.

 

the fc needs six wheel drive with a 26b.

 

If the RX-8 had 186K worldwide sales, it sold about as well worldwide as the FC did in the U.S. alone, and a good bit less than the SA/FB did in the U.S. alone. Most sources indicate that the RX-8 sold best in its first season where Mazda moved a little under 24,000 units in the U.S. which is less than half of what they sold of RX-7s in each of the peak years of 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. I believe there were nearly 500,000 SA/FBs sold worldwide with over 300,000 sold in the U.S. From what I could find on the web, Mazda only sold about 2000 RX-8s in America in 2009 which is a very small number.

Maybe the RX-8 did well enough saleswise for Mazda in the rest of the world, but I think in the U.S. it was a bit of a sales disappointment.

 

Well last year at 7stock if any of you guys remember the Mazda PR guy kept talking about how the Rx8 had poor sales and if we wanted to see some more rotary development we needed to buy more Rx8s... and the crowd boo'd him hahahaha.

I have also read other articles citing the Rx8s poor sales as to why Mazda is pulling the plug on it.

 

Just read this article:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/does-ma...have-a-future/

 

New word of the day: "shinari"

Might not be a RX but looks pretty sweet...




http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1...esign-language

https://www.rx7club.com/automotive-news-lounge-22/new-rx7-4th-gen-rx7-rx9-whatever-884174/page11/

 

I just got my October print issue of Car and Driver. They had one of their "Best Handling Car" comparison tests. Interestingly, the RX-8 came in third behind the Porsche Boxster Spyder and Lotus Elise SC. It was ahead of the BMW M3, Nissan GT-R, Corvette Z06 and VW GTI. The article was attempting to rank the cars based on subjective impressions of the cars' handling rather than hard statistical data. The summary of the Mazda was that "overall, the RX-8 remains a brilliant, relatively lightweight four-seat chassis in search of class-competitive power and fuel economy." The article also mentioned that they almost didn't include the RX-8 because it has lost so many other recent comparison tests.

Obviously Mazda can really build great chassis. If they can't sort out a powerful, efficient rotary, maybe they could at least give us another great sports car with a piston engine.

I like that Shinari concept Nick_d_TII posted, but it looks sort of huge.

 

in my opinion i think the best way to biuld the RX-7 4th gen would to make a retro car like the carmaros,mustangs,challllangers. but make it look like an RX-2, or RX-3. place it on the RX-8 R3's excillent chassis and then give it a turbo rotary option (like the RX-2 and RX-3 where for the chapelle) have it come standard with the same MZR as in the Mazda 3 and a MZR turbo option so you could have that great chassis with either a fuel efficant 4bamger a torquy MS3 motor, or a high reving Rotary.

 

I don't know if there are enough people who have fond recollections of the RX-2 or RX-3 to make retro Mazda styling much of a selling point. Every Baby Boomer out there loved the 60s muscle cars, and even with that kind of built-in audience, you hear a lot of complaints that the retro-styling craze is over. I thought the retro T-Bird from 2002 was pretty cool and nobody bought it.

 

still i do believe the rotary should be purely an optional engine with a Sky or MZR as standard

 

IF the rotary is optional its not an RX-7....or an "RX" anything for that matter.

What would be a good idea is having the turbo version as optional perhaps under the mazdaspeed name. (GXL vs TII, 3 vs MS3, miata vs MS miata etc). The RX-8 IS a great chassis, so no point in wasting precious R&D dollars fixing what isn't broken. Delete the saturn door, perhaps shorten the wheelbase a tad, and make it light weight. A sub 3000lb coupe powered by the 16x will be plenty fun (faster than a miata, bettr styling and handling than the 3), and a turbo version right around 300hp would be class competitive.

If mazda could somehow keep the price point for th base model in the low 20's or god forbid below 20, they could be very successful and there are enough performance enthusiasts out there to reward their efforts for making the turbo version.

 

That hits the nail on the head. What put the RX7 on the map in the first place was it being a cool sports car most anyone could afford. Remind, when it came out in the late 70's, advertised MSRP was $7,000. Could you imagin the waiting lines if it were to have a base MSRP of $19,900?

 

Another interesting article:

http://wot.motortrend.com/6681587/fu...ech/index.html

 

^Beat me to it. A quick quote:

" Those worried that Mazda may give up on the rotary altogether needn't be. "The rotary is like a jewel or a treasure for Mazda," Kanai says, adding that Mazda is the only company that knows how to polish something so valuable.

But where could it find a home? Over at Mazda's design studios there's at least one guy itching to do another RX-7. Speedy Maeda is the son of the designer of the very first RX-7, and he would love to follow in his father's footsteps. But before the design boss is commissioned to create a new RX-7 there must be strong demand for the rotary-engined icon's return. "Please ask Mazda to do a new sports car, please..." begs Maeda. "


& the pics..





The second one looks pretty mean & with a 16x, it would be f'ing sex.

 

Well, it wouldn't be an RX-7, but I'm pretty sure a few of the early RXs actually did have optional piston-engined versions. I think the RX-3 was available as the 808 with a piston engine, and I think there was a piston-engined car that shared the RX-2 chassis.

I don't think a rotary version of the MX-5 roadster would be a bad idea at all. If they could make the RENESIS fit, that would be a nice horsepower upgrade over the standard piston engine. In a lighter chassis, it wouldn't seem so underpowered anymore.

I still say Mazda will be reluctant to sell a unique rotary powered sports car in the same price range as the MX-5 because it would siphon off sales of that model. The last time they had two sports cars in the same price neighborhood, the slightly more expensive one ('90-91 FC) barely sold. They have a great thing going with the Miata that probably means a lot more to their bottom line than any rotary sports car could.

 

The bottom one's not bad. The top one looks like it has a Hercule Poirot mustache.

 

the problem inlies that the Rotary is a poor selling point for the RX-8. as i said make a Piston version with a rotary option which would be called the RX-whatever. otherwise i dont care what kind of car you put it in the Rotary will not sell well most people looking for a new sports car are very wery of the rotary engine because it is out of the norm.

realy guys its sad to say the only way to save the rotary is to make it purly optional.