"We stumbled across this rare and rather killer footage of the fleeting moments of Mazda's RX7 Group B career on the highly entertaining Japanese Nostalgic Car blog. Listen to the sound of the RX7's high-revving rotary engine, and enjoy "
Hail the Mazda RX-3
There’s a lot of people who can’t get enough of this boxy Japanese saloon from the 1970s. We think it has something to do with the simplicity of the three box form, which perhaps found its purest expression in these cars – and is almost wholly absent from the crurrent generation of forum-designed, digitally rendered focus-group tested new machines.
If drag factor and flow convergence are the new design tyrannies – then the simple three box solution ruled in the analogue age.
Of all the sarariman staples of the era the Mazda RX 3 is perhaps the most interesting. Clashing head-to-head with the iconic Skyline throughout the seventies in Japanese motorsport, they came with a high-revving, super reliable rotary engine that ensured that Nissan were given a run for their money on track.
And as far as marketing goes, we’re digging the way the RX 3 was sold. Unashamed racey DNA encoded in an everyman’s body: a sure fire hit for generations of boy racers.
The RX3 is a less-obvious choice for a connoisseur collector of Japanese muscle.
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This was a beautiful car and and the rotary powerplant remains an engineering masterpiece. The two put together makes the Rx3 an automotive legend. Once peripheral porting of the engines was permitted in racing the Rx3’s dominated on the track and the formidable Nissan Skyline GTRs finally had a worthy adversary.
Classic car, looks great.