1981 Mazda RX-7 TWR Race Car - Top Speed
In 1981, the RX-7 was still a pretty new car, having only just debuted in 1979. It wasn’t completely new to motorsports, and had even grabbed a class win at the 1979 24 Hours of Daytona, similar to the kind of success enjoyed by earlier Mazda... It wasn’t an impressive year for the RX-7s at Spa, but the lessons learned were put to good use, and in 1981, TWR grabbed an overall win at Spa, finally providing really solid evidence of the performance potential of the Wankel rotary engine. Continue reading to learn more about the 1981 Mazda RX-7 TWR Race Car. Like the road car, the RX-7 is smaller than you’d probably expect, and this is true for all generations of the car. That’s because Japanese tax regulations for cars go off not only engine displacement but also the overall dimensions of the car. Since the RX-7’s small engine displacement qualified it for the small vehicle class, Mazda was sure to make it fit the sizing regulations as well. This helped the car a lot in Japan , since it meant much lower taxes on the RX-7 than on competing sports cars. As for the road-going version of the first-gen RX-7, the interior was nice enough for a car from the late ’70s. And if the previous sentence made you think about velour upholstery then you’re thinking along the right lines. Source: www.topspeed.com
