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Mazda RX 8 Car Review
The term practical sports car is an oxymoron,
but in the case of the Mazda RX 8 it is not only accurate, but an
understatement. This is a tremendously fun car to drive, extremely well priced,
and you get four useable doors to boot. It is without doubt the most
underestimated car we have tested and only its lackluster fuel mileage prevents
it from being irresistible. One caveat, don’t get the automatic transmission
version because it dulls the high revving rotary engine and the engine has been
detuned for less power.
Let’s
start at the most interesting part of the Mazda. No, it isn’t the rotary engine,
but the way the company has engineered a sports car to have four usable doors
without diminishing its exceptional handling. The trick is that the smaller rear
doors open forward. In the old days these were called suicide doors because in
an accident when they swung open they caused the occupants to be ejected towards
the impact. Fortunately, the RX rear doors only release when the front doors
have already been opened and so such negative effects are negated.
There is some chassis flex because of the vast opening that the four doors
create, but the way this RX handles it hardly matters. With a terrific 50/50
weight distribution, an engine that does not wake up until it reaches 8000 rpm,
and comfortable seats, this as friendly a sports car as you are ever going to
find. And, here is the coup de gra; the car lists for $55,265 Australian Dollars
with a six-speed manual and $54,465 if you want a four-speed automatic
transmission. This car placed second in our family car of the year competition
last year losing to the more practical and less expensive
Toyota Prius.
This is the highest a sports car has ever come in our contest since the
Subaru WRX came out
in fighting trim. In other words, for the price of a well equipped, but mundane
Honda Accord or Toyota Camry
you can have a genuine family roadrunner.
Dad’s
view: It is addicting. The more you drive the RX the more compelling it
becomes. The sound of the rotary engine as it winds towards 10,000 rpm is as
turbine like as you are ever going to hear and the easy to shift six-speed
manual makes it effortless to repeat this process in every gear. The engine
produces 238 horsepower at 8500 rpm and 159 pound-feet of torque at 5500 rpm,
but if you go against our wishes and order the automatic you only get 197
horsepower at 7200 rpm and 164 pound-feet at 5000 rpm. Moreover, the automatic
does not have the same aggressive suspension.
This is not a road rocket, although Mazda ads proclaim in can get to 60 mph in
under six seconds, but a well balanced sports car capable of enjoyable, if not
blistering acceleration. World-class handling is really its forte, but you don’t
sacrifice a comfortable ride for this enjoyment, as the suspension is even
comfortable over troubled roads. If you learn to polish your shifting skills,
this Mazda can get you around a mountain road faster than any non-turbocharged
vehicle in its class regardless of price. Yes, a
Subaru STi is
faster and has room for four, but they have little in common as the RX is the
boxer and the Subaru the slugger. Both get you there, but the RX is less a
bruiser thanks to a well-tuned independent wishbone front suspension with
stabilizer bar and coil springs and multi-link rear suspension and coil springs.
The RX-8 requires practice to reach its potential. It is easy to promote
understeer despite its fine balance by applying too much throttle even with
Mazda’s driver friendly dynamic stability control. A bit more tire would make
this a super-handling vehicle, but the cost would be further road noise and a
more jarring journey over tax-deprived roadways. Mazda has compromised on its
tire and wheel combination and it works well for most
There
are not many cars we enjoy cornering because they usually fall into two
categories. Those that let go without a lot of warning due to their power and
unbalanced weight distribution such as the
Nissan 350Z (53/47) and the Porsche 911
(36/64). These are not for the novice driver. In fact, the Porsche is the only
car we ever spun and that was on a highway onramp where there was some sand. We
were barely going 40 mph when the car started to revolve on its axis. It seemed
like an eternity before the front end came around and I accelerated out of the
spin. The RX would have had much less of a problem with the sand, or ice, for
that matter, with its better balance thanks to the light weight rotary engine
that does away with pistons, values, crankshafts, connecting rods, camshafts,
and rings among other items. As a result the Mazda Renesis engine is light and
easy to mount low in the chassis for better balance. The upside is a car that
weighs in at 3000 pounds and an engine that can rev like a Formula One engine
ranges and can still be lugged in sixth gear down to 35 mph without bucking. The
downside is high oil and fuel consumption.
Under normal driving I shifted from first to third to sixth and left it there.
Sixth gear is a bit of a pain to find at first because it is snuggled up to
reverse in the shift pattern. The other gears were easy to locate following in
the tradition of good shifting transmissions that the Miata started. I only wish
Subaru and Ford would follow suit.
Continued...
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