Mazda's forgotten rotaries

Mazda is famous for its rotary-powered RX sports cars, but in its quest to commercialize the engine, Mazda has hit some serious dead ends along the way...

Earlier this week, Mazda celebrated "50 years of challenging convention" a nod to half a century of packing rotary engines into cars. But not just RXs, Mazda has put the rotary in all sorts of transport, seemingly to see if it would take off.

It didn't, and now we have this list of rotary cars that time forgot.

Add CarsGuide as a preferred source in Google Search

Mazda Roadpacer AP (1975)

A perfect storm of odd Japanese regulations gave birth to the Roadpacer.

Well, here's an Aussie connection, this is a badge-engineered HJ Holden Premier (built here, in Australia) with Mazda's famed 13B rotary under the hood.

At over 1500kg this car is hilariously underpowered and was built with some very specific Japanese domestic requirements in mind. Vehicle tax in Japan is calculated on engine displacement (1.3-litres is much less than even the base-spec 2.8-litre engine the HJ normally recieved) and Mazda desperately needed to plug a large sedan-sized hole in its domestic line-up. Would you belive that AP stood for anti-pollution?

Mazda Rotary Pickup (1974)

Imagine how much of a collector's item this is now.

This car started its life as a project between Ford and Mazda that kind of continues through to this day with the Ranger and BT-50. Built during the oil crisis of the '70s that caused a spike in demand for smaller engines, the Rotary Pickup was possibly the most unusual little truck ever made.

The name was affectionately shortened to REPU, apparently pronounced 'Rhee-Phoo' (said with American accent). Despite sounding ideal for Australia, it was only sold in the US with an estimated 15,000 units built.

Mazda Parkway Rotary 26 (1974)

That's a lot of bus for not a lot of engine.

If you think the 1.5 tonne Roadpacer AP sounded woefully slow, wait 'til you get a load of this. The same tiny twin-rotor 13B was asked to pull a 26-person 2.8 tonne bus.

Incidentally, this is also the rarest rotary vehicle ever made, with only 44 units ever built. Even though it's rumored only four remain, for some reason I think even the Roadpacer is more collectible...

Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid (2007)

A very unassuming car to carry the future of the rotary engine on its shoulders.

Jeez, that name is a mouthful, and the car is about as boring as all those words sound. It's a twin-rotor, dual-fuel hybrid. But wait, don't stop reading! While that sounds like a waste of construction materials, this ugly people mover may have been carrying the torch for the future of the rotary engine.

According to Mazda, the rotary needed minimal modification to run on hydrogen. This is good because emissions are the number one problem preventing the return of the rotary. The engine has a nasty habit of not sufficiently burning fuel during the combustion cycle and therefore excreting paticularly nasty pollutants out the exhaust. Hydrogen power solves this problem by putting out hardly any nasty pollutants whether it fully burns or not.

The RX-8 Hydrogen RE emits no CO2 and almost no NOx.

Of course, there is the much more interesting looking 2006 RX-8 Hydrogen RE (also the only factory turbo RX-8), but as the Premacy is applicable to a wider audience it allows Mazda to test the technology more thoroughly and maybe one day give us a new RX (we can only hope...)

What's your favourite rotary-powered car? Tell us about it in the comments.