In my mispent youth I owned a Mazda Rx4. It was purchased for the princely sum of $2000. Believe it or not, now such a vehicle would probably command double that. That means a 1975 vehicle has doubled in price over 15 years. However I am pretty sure my Rx4 is wrapped around some telephone pole in rural WA. It was a sad day when I sold it to a friend to finance my bible college days in Adelaide. Unfortunately it was way to heavy on the juice for my career of choice while studying, that of delivering pizza's. But I digress.
My Rx4 was shiny red with a black vinyl roof. It looked very similar to the one pictured here. It had a killer stereo in it. Two 150w amps, 4 x 3 way Pioneer speakers. Of course there were no such things as Cd or DVD in car players in those days, but the cassette player belted out Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl, Ric Cua or Bryan Duncan, depending on my mood.

The motor was a 13b street ported job with a 4 barrell Holley Carbie. One problem I had was fuel starvation at high revs (around 8000 rpm). I managed to pick up a rally fuel pump from a Rx7 for $50. The pump was worth a few hundred bucks, but the guy needed the cash. It solved the problem and the motor revved long and hard from that point on.

It went through numerous exhausts, once totally ripping apart a set of extractors. I ended up putting in some new extractors and a straight through exhaust, and it was pretty loud.

In the wet it was almost uncontrollable, spinning the rear wheels all the way up to fourth gear. Many times at the lights it took on and comprehensively beat much more fancied sets of wheels.

Anyways, back to the present and a promise I have made myself. I will one day purchase a Series 1 or 2 Mazda Rx7. (1979 - 1982/3) This will be returned to almost stock condition. No flares or mags for me. Just a clean, preferably white, Rx7 to take out when not driving the family around. I have already got in mind the exhaust system to put on it, because this is probably the second most crucial part of owning a rotary motor. The most important part is ensuring that the little pump which puts oil into the carby to oil the rotors is in top operational condition. If it is, a rotary motor will give you smooth, powerful performance for many happy years of motoring, despite the ill concieved fallacies which some will give.