The RX-8 was designed by a completely different staff of people than the three previous Mazda rotary experiements. For the first and second gen experiment, Mazda used some of the same staff to develop the car, for 2nd and 3rd, the same situation applies. For the RX-8, Mazda still used alot of the same staff, but if I remember correctly, Mazda's chief design engineer for the "sports" department (Mazda Speed?) retired and they got some fresh new kids off of the street, hence the new "riced out, future" design and the MP3s, etc. . . I believe the modern RX-7 was actually designed in the late 80s, so it's model is a bit dated.
Past that, the car was designed the be driven by the more economical driver, hence the larger cargo area, larger backseats, and backdoors. It's still a pretty zippy car, even if it's not turbo, but plan on a turbo version being devloped sooner or later.
And in defense of rotary engines - they are great! They sound like crap compared to piston engines because they produce square waves and not sine, but they last ALOT longer is treated right because the engines are simple (approx. 13 moving parts on a rotary compared to around 45 on a piston engine), and for the displacement (.8 litres on the Gen. II NA model), they produce ALOT of HP.
This is from memory, correct me if I'm wrong.
Back to the topic: Tercel Driver, I don't know what your talking about, but I understand the feeling of wanting a challange. I often enter unpowered cars in events for fun.
Steve-o
