Quote Originally Posted by EJ25RUN
Ok, let me paraphrase in another way so you can better understand what i meant.

Let me begin by saying that i never said rotaries are unreliable and or any other points your rant brought up.

I'm assuming you misinterpreted my use of the word "failure."




What that meant was in the modern automotive industry, it is much harder to get a rotary to be as versatile as a piston engine. Forget our enthusiast culture for a second and look at the average person who could care less about cars. Owning a rotary in their eyes is an unnecessary burden. 90% of car buyers don't care that much about performance.

Mazda has used this in creating a niche market all to itself with the rotary engine. In my eyes, THAT is the failure.

Other car brands have experimented with it but that has all come to nothing because an equal investment in a piston engine holds promise for a much better reward. Nissan's VQ35 is a good example because so many Nissans and Renaults were powered by it. This has much higher profit potential. A rotary could never be that versatile. It lives as a powerplant for enthusiasts.

This is where my example of two strokes comes form. 500cc and 250cc motorbikes died about 15 years ago all over the world because 1. they don't work on the street, 2. their powerbands are terrible 3. the emissions are a joke by 1980 standards.

So you see? The reason i consider a rotary a failure is not because some owners need proper training to be allowed in purchasing it. No, it is because over the last century, Rotarys were simply not good enough engineering wise to work in the real world. Otherwise, more rotary engines would be on the market today.
I understood what you said pefectly. I don't think you understood what you said. Let me explain.

You said the Rotary was a failure at Mass Production. I say you are completely dead wrong on that. Here is why. The first Rotaries came over in the 60's. R100 rebadged Familias hit around that time. But for fun purposes, we will look at the RX-7's and maybe the RX-8's.

The FB:

474.565 were produced.....377.878 were sold in the US.
Sports Car International named it #7 on it's list of best cars of the 70s.
In 1983 the RX7 appears on the Car and Drivers 10 best list for the first time.

The FC:

272,027 Produced. Non-turbo not allowed in Japan.
They were restyled after the 928 and mostly the 944 Porsches after a lead designer spent time in the US talking to RX7 owners and looking at other sports cars.
Motor Trends Import car of the year for 1986.
Car and Drivers 10 best list for a second time in 1987.
Sold 86,000 in the US alone in it's first year in production, 1986. Sales peaked in 1988.

The Convertible FC. Fatured the first ever Windblocker, the nice little think that goes up behind the driver when the top is down that you now see on all these Mercedes and BMWs. The FC did it first.
It also was named best Ragtop by numerous magazines.

The FD:

68,589 produced. Even in low numbers, The 92-95 years were considered the best seller by Mazda because it was sold to so many different places, mainly the US.
It featured the first ever Mass Produced, sequential twin turbo system ever exported from Japan. It was here before the others.
Motor Trends Import/Domestic car of the year. (Thats ALL cars))
Playboy named it better than the VIper and named it Car of the Year for Playboy in 1993....if it's good enough for Hugh, it's not a failure.
It also made Car and Drivers 10 best list for ALL THREE years it was sold in the US.
In 2007, Road and Track said that the Ace in the sleeve for Mazda was the RX7, A car once touted as the purest, most Exhilerating sports car in the world.
The FD is still regarded as one of the most balanced and finest handling cars of all time.
The design was so far ahead of it's time, that it lasted 11 years, with the Rotary.

Now, We can all agree that the RX7 IS the Rotary. Let's not forget the R100, REPU, RX2, RX3, RX4, RX8 and the Cosmo numbers.

I would say Mazda did anything BUT fail at Mass Production and success with the Rotary Engine. Where you see they have failed by creating a niche market, I see that they have succeeded very much with it. They are not a company based on the Rotary. They will not live and die by it. But they have succeeded with it greatly and have proven that it is a viable platform by putting it into extremely capable cars. That is anything but failure for an engine design to last well over 40 years in production, reletively unchanged other than increasing displacement and adding Turbos.

Sound like success.