Mazda's Frey Museum is a Celebration of the World's Weirdest Car Brand

How would a rotary engine tow truck work? Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't the REPU use a 13B which has like zero low-end torque? I've never been in a REPU so I don't know, but that just seems like a weird combination.

Also, someone please call about Pickles, I really need to know the story.
 
How would a rotary engine tow truck work? Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't the REPU use a 13B which has like zero low-end torque? I've never been in a REPU so I don't know, but that just seems like a weird combination.

Also, someone please call about Pickles, I really need to know the story.

According to JNC, the 13b-powered bus had a 5.37:1 first gear and an incredible 6.67:1 final drive ratio. That's a 35:1 total reduction (a brief google search tells me that 10-15:1 is fairly typical of a first gear combined ratio in most cars). So while the 13b has very little low-end torque, it does have "decent" power and some RPM to work with.
 
How would a rotary engine tow truck work? Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't the REPU use a 13B which has like zero low-end torque? I've never been in a REPU so I don't know, but that just seems like a weird combination.

It also weighed 2800+kgs when empty. Add another 1400+kgs worth of driver and passengers and that 102 lbft torque is going to struggle. I hope it was flat where it was operated.
 
Also, someone please call about Pickles, I really need to know the story.
I sort of figured it has something to do with the male organ of love.
It's to do with the Soviets and the canteen in Hiroshima.

Every car in there has a strange story - mostly personal to the Freys. That's part of what makes it such an interesting place.
 
How can they call it a museum when they're missing the most iconic of all the Mazdas? :P

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An mx3! I used to have one! :sly:
I still do. Three, in fact :D
How can they call it a museum when they're missing the most iconic of all the Mazdas? :P

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There are roughly 140 cars in the collection and 50 in the exhibit. I don't actually remember seeing a Demio on either visit or the super secret downstairs room; there may be one in the warehouse - there's not many modern Mazdas in the Frey collection (the NB Coupe was the newest the first time I was there, but they have a 6 MPS and a 3 MPS now too) - but I don't know for sure.


I also should elaborate on the story about Jujiro Matsuda surviving the nuclear strike on Hiroshima. A rarely mentioned story states that Matsuda was going to his favorite barber on his birthday for a traditional birthday haircut, and seeing someone about to get there before him he sped up to nip in first for the 7.30am opening appointment - during an air raid warning, no less.

He'd finished and got a car back to Toyo Kogyo (Mazda) in Fuchu three miles away when the bomb detonated just before 8.16am, 1,900ft above Shima Hospital - off-target from the Aloi Bridge. Little Boy wasn't actually that big a device, and the area of total devastation was around a mile radius, but three miles is still well within a overpressure region. By sheer fluke, a small mountain called Hijiyama sits between the hypocentre and what's now the Mazda main factory, and this shielded the factory from the worst of it - though Matsuda and his driver were both knocked off their feet, the factory was essentially unscathed.

Matsuda's barber was 50 yards from the hypocentre and obliterated. Fine margins.
 
And the motor from a fourth that's been re-homed in a different chassis...if memory serves?
Not quite. The engine from something else has gone into one of the three (and its engine has gone to power a kit car).
 
There's some pretty neat and excellent cars on display in that exhibit. A few of my favorite ones include the RX-7 Rally Car, the 323 Rally Car, that Luce R130, Savanna RX-3, and that NB MX-5 Coupe.

Also, one random thing from me to point out:
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The 121 here reminds me of the Suzuki X90 for some reason.
 
Probably the best article written in :gtpflag:

I have a silver 323 Astina, but it ain't named Pickles. :lol:

Have another Mazda in the Family, by way of my Nephew's Efini.:)
 
I wouldn't say that Mazda is a weird car brand. They are quite mainstream to be honest.
 
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