The Mazda Roadpacer Was A Big Holden With A Rotary Engine For Some Reason - Jalopnik
Here's how this broke down: In the 1970s, Mazda was a plucky, small Japanese automaker with big dreams. They wanted to expand their lineup by adding a full-size car, but they didn't have the platform for it. Enter GM, who wanted information from Mazda on rotary engines, possibly for one of the aborted mid-engine rotary Corvette attempts from that... GM would ship their Holden HJ Premier sedans to Japan without an engine. Mazda would put in their 1. 3-liter 13B rotary engine. The resulting car (complete with ridiculous JDM hood-mounted side mirrors) was off to pace the roads under the name Mazda Roadpacer. I'm not sure who the target market was, but I can see this thing being popular among journalists in the 1970s. You could do interviews in the car and even feed your source some snacks from the fridge. This was a far cry from the twin-turbo rotaries that would humiliate lesser cars on the track in two decades. Put all of these things together and you have a car that was basically awful to drive. Rotary engines have a lot of advantages, like fewer moving parts, light weight, and ridiculously high RPM limits. So why on Earth did anyone think it was a good fit for a big car like the. Source: jalopnik.com
