Yumcha

FYI everyone. Not the most detailed info, but at least it gives you an idea what the RX-8 will be like once it arrives...



Road test


Mazda - RX8
[December 02 2002]

I’ve just scorched along a Californian freeway at twice the national speed limit and am about to dive into a severe assortment of French Alpine switchbacks. This is all occurring 8,000 miles from home, near Hiroshima.

The location is the Miyoshi Global Proving Course, intended to copy the most challenging stretches of blacktop in the world, and the Mazda RX-8 is the reason we’re here.

Just climbing in the RX-8 is a unique occurrence. It looks great: sharp, low and sleek, innovative coupe to rival the likes of the Audi TT. One of the key differences is that the RX-8 has what Mazda terms a ‘Freestyle’ door mechanism. Behind each front door is a secondary mini-door, with no external door handle. To give good strength in a side-on crash, the front doors overlap these rears. The latter hinge backwards to open, leaving a gaping pillarless hole to allow a pair of rear-seat passengers to gain easy access. They’ll find similar space in there to a BMW 3-Series Coupe and plenty more than a TT offers.

The RX-8’s driving seat, meanwhile, is low-set, supportive and multi-adjustable. It’s all purposefully styled in here, with a smart two-tone, three-spoke steering wheel, drilled alloy pedals and broad swoops of aluminium-effect plastic running along the transmission tunnel that stretches the length of the interior.

I’m focused on the large rev counter that sits at the centre of the overlapping trio of instruments, set at the lower edge of my line of vision. The engine winds all the way round to 9,000rpm and I’ve little time to learn to make the best use of its potential.

This certainly sounds like no other powerplant. The subtly menacing whirring noise it produces is in fact closer to the motors propelling the Shinkansen Bullet Train that’s sped us here across the Japanese countryside at speeds knocking on for 190mph. I’m driving the high-performance version of the RX-8, which in Euro spec will serve up a healthy 237bhp at a frenzied 8,200rpm. A 189bhp version will also be built but it’s yet to be confirmed if this will come to the UK.

Back to our quick variation on the theme, and the power delivery is progressive, instantly accessible and builds rapidly in intensity. A snappy six-speed manual gearbox and the fact that the rev counter’s needle zips so swiftly round the dial means that a relative lack of torque with just 156lb ft available at 5,500rpm rarely intrudes.

The same can’t be said of the marshals standing at every corner, politely waggling ‘slow down’ signs at me. Then a bloke leaps out in the middle of the track brandishing a pair of illuminated batons, pointing me in the direction of a large tent. My presence is requested at a series of lengthy technical briefings.

First off, I receive an explanation of how the RX-8’s rotary engine works. Essentially, the RX-8’s powerplant does without a succession of cylinders and pistons like you’d find in a conventional engine. There’s a large oval chamber instead, in which a roughly triangular ‘rotor’ rotates. Where the faces of the triangle pass the spherical sides of the chamber, three separate crescent-shaped spaces are formed. Within these, the stages of the combustion process – induction, compression, ignition, combustion and exhaust – all occur as each pass the inlet ports, twin spark plugs and exhaust ports, keeping the whole thing whizzing round. The RX-8 has two of these chambers, each with a nominal capacity of just 654cc each. This naturally-aspirated ‘Renesis’ engine is said to be up to 20 per cent more fuel efficient than the twin-turbocharged rotary unit fitted to the more hard-core RX-7 coupe that came before it. And so the briefing comes to an end I’m back behind the wheel again.

Even with the standard-fit Dynamic Stability Control system switched off, there’s little squeal from the driven rear wheels when rapidly pulling away from a standstill. I soon find myself feeling completely settled and familiar with the way the RX-8 drives. It’s agile but never edgy.

There’s scarcely any understeer while a shove of the drive-by-wire throttle mid-corner does little to loosen the rear end either, just a sudden lifting off of the power with the suspension loaded up proving to threaten to send the tail stepping readily out of shape. Only the lightweight fully electrically-operated power-steering system can impinge on progress, at times feeling sluggish and numb to respond.

That’s a criticism that can never be levelled at the RX-8’s engine. Again it’s encouraging me to delve into the extremes of its rev range so I seek out the motorway-style long straight and give it another thorough thraping. A warning chime indicates that 8,500rpm has arrived already, then there’s a scrabble to reach a higher gear before the fuel cut off kicks in at a monster 9,000rpm.

Too soon, the signs are back out and my time with the RX-8 is over. And for a while, too – it’s not officially on sale outside Japan until well into 2003…

Peter Grunert

Loseit

iTrader: (1)

i love to Top Gear!! That Jeremy guy is the funniest car-man on the planet. I used to watch it on the BBC all the time. They are so sarcastic ... not afraid to rip on a cars shortcomings. I miss that show

xenon7

ahhh MAN. I miss these cars!!

Real treat if you have not driven any of the 1st and 2nd Gen
cars!

I have my eye out for a "mechanics special" 79-85, possibly newer.