I don't believe it has anything to do with retro at all. It has to do with believing, committing towards and developing a product line that you never deviate from it's intent (in this case, a sports car). While the Corvette has evolved, it's still basically the same principles behind the car; same with the Porsche 911. This is the reason their loyal customers continue to line up to buy them. They idolized them as youngsters and when they go to buy them as an adult, the new versions still embody everything car originally stood for, but with all the modern technology improvements currently available that a new buyer expects. That's actually a pretty difficult task to evolve the car over the decades to continue to get sales, but staying true to the original idea of the platform and keep the same spirit.

 

hooold on....

I thought C5 and onwards corvettes were much more geared towards handling, i mean, enough to say that the principles have changed.

I was under the impression that they could not handle for anything prior to 1997.

what do i know I am just an internet kid though.

also depends what we're calling 'principles'

 

A bunch of the "new sports cars" are butt ugly. The Subaru STI and Mitsubishi Evolution have never been famous for their looks and even the Audi A8 is questionably styled, in my opinion. That doesn't mean they're not fast, though.

The new GT-R is just too damn big.

 

none of those are true sports cars though, they're all wheel drive sedans short of the GT-R which is a coupe. there's a difference and difficult to dress a pig in sports car clothes. just like saying an RX8 is a sports car, it's not as it is just a mix of a sports car with a sedan. i own an RX8 also and i would bite my tongue to call it a true car of sport regardless of how hard they tried to mix the 2. once you introduce a large framed chassis to a car it no longer meets the requirements.

 

Let's not forget the Hyundai Genesis Coupe ($24,250). One of my friends has one – it's not particularly sporty out of the box, but it's a good platform for modding (the 2.0 turbo).

The problem is making affordable sports cars (a fairly flexible definition). Some people think $100,000 is affordable, which fits Porsches, GT-Rs, and M3s nicely. The Chevy Camaro starts at a list price of $23,555 and the Scion FR-S starts at $25,255 – that would be a tough market for Mazda to compete in with a low-volume product. You can buy 4 entry-level sports cars for the price of a GT-R, which means 4 more drivers potentially enjoying track days and racing.

The Mazda MX-5 starts at $23,720 for the base model. So the next purist rotary sports car would probably sell for over $35,000. The current Nissan Z may be a pig in stock form, but it sells for $29,990.

Nissan's 240SX is a good example of what not to do. They had a decently sporty/economical S platform that went back to 1976, but the high Yen of the 1990s and the truck engine KA24DE V6 killed its appeal for a lot of import enthusiasts. Decent S14 examples are rare as hen's teeth these days and a lot of them have been wrecked by amateur drifters.

If they had been able to sell the S15 Silvia in North America for a reasonable price, I'm sure it would have done very well.

 

Nissan never raced the late-model S14 and S15 because they were focused on developing the Skyline for competition – the plan worked, I guess, because they ended up beating everyone. The 300ZX was the best selling of the holy Japanese sports car trinity (Mazda RX-7, Toyota Supra, Nissan 300ZX), but it wasn't campaigned seriously in Japan by the end of its production run in 2000.

Nobody even talks about the Mitsubishi 3000GT (GTO) / Dodge Stealth any more. My friend said it was a nightmare of complexity and even the 3000GT driver I met at a car meet mentioned its excessive weight.

 

Japanese cars have only really been selling here 70's, and have only been not the source of ridicule since maybe the 80's. What you have now, is really the first generation of older adults who were raised on Japanese cars being better, and the concept of Japanese luxury brands. Now in their 40's and 50's and having enough money.

Again, it's not a matter of can it happen. It is happening.

Who do you think the GTR buyer is? He's probably that guy who grew up in the 80's and 90's, drove a Honda or an eclipse, or even a Z or RX7, and lusted after skylines he saw in his Turbo or Option magazines, and can now pay $100k for one. The couple of owners I know are exactly those guys. One of them used to have an FD, before he moved on to German stuff—but the GTR is really what he wanted. He could buy a Porsche or a Corvette but he didn't. Who buys a Lexus LF-A? Who's going to buy the new Supra or NSX?

Someday, I'm going to decide my FD is too old... and I'm not necessarily going to buy German because I need a status symbol, but because Japan (Mazda) didn't grow up with me.

 

Tell that to Toyobaru (FR-S/BRZ)! The S13 240SX was a brilliant car, Toyobaru were brilliant to make a modern version of it.

Now if they were *really* brilliant they'd make a 2-seater based on it, with the engine/trans, firewall, windshield, and front-seaters moved about 20" or so aft for 50/50 or better weight distribution and make a modern 2000GT out of it
Something like that, with a rotary, would be my ideal modern RX-7. But they should also make a piston-engine MX-7 version for the masses that want/need acceptable fuel mileage and have "R-word" concerns...

Inline 4! That revved to 7200rpm and pulled decently well (for the time) all the way to redline! The S14's version of that motor had different cams and fell flat above about 6200rpm, but the earlier KA24DE inline 4 was actually pretty good. Yeah, they definitely should have brought the SR20DET over, of course, as an optional powerplant. Anyway, S13 was definitely an huge leap over the previous live-axle silvias.

I think Nissan's main 2 problems with the 240SX in the U.S. were that they refused to bring the turbo over (justifiably concerned that it would be a better sports car than the overweight 300ZX) and the fact that half of even Nissan enthusiasts somehow thought of it as a 2-door Altima. The car was definitely underappreciated in its day.

I still think the S13 was the best of the line. I had a '91 and then a '95. The '91 felt a lot lighter and more engaging, and had the best feeling power steering I've experienced at the track. The '95 felt soft, numb, and vague in comparison.
S15 looked cool, but had gained in size and weight.

Anyway, for *me*, I definitely think that any new RX-7 should be more of a cab-rearward 2-seat version of the S13/FR-S/BRZ approach, with 50/50 or better weight distribution and double-wishbones all around instead of struts. Keep it small, keep it simple, keep it LIGHT, and the price could be reasonable. For the love of all that is holy I would hope they don't take the "maximalist" approach of the oversized/overwrought/overweight (but of course still blindingly-fast) GT-R.

 

I do think it's kinda ugly, but in a purposeful, serious, bad-*** way. Certainly not a svelte or classically sculpted look! Looks like it should fold out into a giant robot or something.
I *don't* think it has a "low stance" at all! The bottom of the car may be low, but the hood, fender, and rooflines are UP there, competing with small houses! "Skyline" indeed!


OK, showing it in a line of lowered NSXs exaggerates the point, but still, car is facking enormous...

 

None of the GT-R owners I know are "that guy". The ones I know are just performance car junkies who don't want to buy American muscle cars.

 

Which is what I was referring to... Compared to most cars coming off the factory line (even performance cars), it's low. Just look back at a picture of a stock FD.

 

Hell, the bottoms of skyscrapers are still on the ground! The GT-R's hoodline and fenderlines are WAY high relative to legitimate sports cars. "Low" is not a word that comes to my mind when I see one in person.


Hoodline above front tires (scaling by 25" diameter tires) ~31"


Hoodline above front wheels (scaling by 28" diameter tires) ~36"
UP there!

 

Whoops – I got into the habit of thinking of the KA24DE as a V6 for some reason – probably the "truck engine" label. I've seen decent builds of the KA24DE – the Turbo Magazine / Import Tuner 750 hp project comes to mind. Most 240 owners aspire to the SR20DET swap, though.

Check out this recent Tomei KA24DE build:
Yes, I think Mazda knows how to build a purist sports car, but they have to want to. Obviously, the RX-8 was a step in the wrong direction (a camel – animal built by committee). The FD is an example of what happens when the right people get their input – hopefully not seen as a complete failure inside Mazda. The 2002 FD was a lot different than the 1992 FD. They stopped selling it here too soon.

 

As usual, you are picking and choosing what to reply to for your own points, rather than what was said...

I never claimed the GT-R was a "sports car".. I never claimed the hood, fenders nor roofline was low... I was speaking about the ground clearance which is relatively low for a production car. Get over it. For a sporty coupe, it's low to the ground. It's obviously got a good center of gravity base because of it's performance.

 

Higher safety regulations = bigger cars.

 

So how did Toyobaru get away with making a brand new car approximately the same size and weight as a 1989 Nissan 240SX?

Hell, how does Chevy make a Corvette that's roughly the same size/weight as a 1968 model?!

This has been a cop-out for far too long. Advances in design, simulation, materials, manufacturing techniques, test methods, etc. etc. etc. mean that we can meet more stringent safety regs without adding undue mass or cost.

That said, European pedestrian impact regs do seem to be forcing some carmakers to go to very high and bluff front ends

 

If it isn't that perhaps people are just getting bigger (fatter) :P

This was a rather interesting read:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewd...getting-worse/

 

oh thats easy, nobody! i've seen just about every car on the streets here, but i've never seen an LFA outside of the lexus booth. from my perspective this makes the LFA more rare than a D type jag, or a Ferrari 250GTO, or a Bugatti type 35, or an enzo, or an aventador as i've seen people street those.

the nissan dealership in the late 90's was a sad an lonely place, there was a period where the 240 was the "sports car" and then they had the altiima/maxima, and that was kind of it.

 

Can someone just kill this thread already. It's too painful to keep coming on here to be reminded that there's NO "RX7 confirmed to be in the pipeline for 2017".

 

the front end is much bigger and rounder . then an equivalent S13

 

Too bad they keep squandering their opportunities. All is not lost, however. Like it or not, the 350Z was the start of something. The "sporty coupes" of the early 2000s: the Toyota Celica, Acura RSX, Mitsubishi Eclipse, etc. are mostly dead and gone. The awkwardly homely and unsporty Accord and Altima coupes are relics.

The availability of the Nissan GT-R and the Toyobaru FR-S/BRZ are good signs. There are rumors of the Supra's return. Honda plans to produce an NSX successor.

Every period has its highs and lows. It's time for Mazda to make its move.

 

/Delete Thread.

 

The only thing I like about the GTR is it's performance #s. It's a BIG, UGLY, HEAVY, GADGETRY CAR which means it's pretty much the antichrist to all that's heavenly awesome about sports cars.

MAZDA WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!...........before some other manufacturer beats you to it. The BRZ is leading the way all you have to do is show them how it's really done.

 

i've also never seen an LFA on the streets here, and this is the town you will see every type of exotic on the planet nearly daily. i probably see several GT-Rs and R8's each week on my way home. i've also only seen one veyron but ferrari's, porsches and lambos litter the place.

 

I think there may be some overlap between the two people we're describing, but either way, there are people out there who will pay $100k for a Japanese car—Particularly if it offers something unique, or in contrast to what the Americans and Germans are offering.