Mazda RX-8 Wins Wheels Car of the Year in the world\'s oldest new car awards.

[clive]

January 20, 2004  
 

Mazda RX-8 Wins Wheels Car of the Year
 
 

Mazda Motor Corporation\'s revolutionary rotary-powered, four-door, four-seat sports car has been named the 2003 Car of the Year by the Australian-based Wheels* magazine. Final results of the annual award were announced on January 20, 2004.

Now in its 41st year, the Wheels Car of the Year is the world\'s oldest continuously-running new car award and Australia\'s most coveted automobile prize.

The Mazda RX-8 was awarded the Wheels prize ahead of 28 eligible vehicles. Eight expert judges spent six days driving the cars over thousands of kilometers at a proving ground and on public roads. The winner was selected by secret ballot.

"The Mazda RX-8 represents the birth of a new and worthwhile category of car," said Wheels editor Ged Bulmer. "The RX-8 has achieved a genuine sports coupe experience, complete with four doors and four seats, thanks to a daring, ingenious design. It\'s good looking, clever, great to drive and a worthy winner of the Wheels Car of the Year."

Mazda Motor Corporation President and CEO Hisakazu Imaki said, "The Mazda RX-8 is the fruit of great effort and passion put forth by the entire Mazda team, from R&D and manufacturing to sales and marketing. It offers customers the driving pleasure and technical innovations they expect from Mazda, including a rotary engine. Receiving the 2003 Car of the Year award from Wheels magazine is a great honour for Mazda, as it is proof that our new-generation products, including Mazda6, Mazda2 and Mazda3, are broadly appreciated in all global markets. The RX-8 is Mazda\'s brand icon. It embodies everything that is great about this company. And our efforts will continue: Mazda will strive to put its collective effort into creating fun-to-drive, \'Zoom-Zoom\' products."

To date, the Mazda RX-8 has been named RJC Car of the Year 2004, 2003-2004 Japan Automotive Hall of Fame Production Car of the Year, and the 2003-2004 Japan Car of the Year \'Most Fun\' special award. In addition, the RENESIS, which powers the RX-8 and is the only mass production rotary engine in the world, was named International Engine of the Year 2003 and RJC Technology of the Year 2004.

Mazda has regularly enjoyed Wheels Car of the Year success. Mazda has won the award five times, making it the most successful full-line importer in the Australian market. Past winners were the 323 in 1980, the MX-5 in 1989 and the 626 in 1983 and 1992.

*  Wheels magazine is Australia\'s biggest selling general interest motoring magazine and has a readership of 507,000 per issue, making it the country\'s second most widely read men\'s magazine.

[Glenn Butcher]

Another great result eh!  

[arcanevalor]

sorry i didnt see this thread before i posted mine,  u can delete my other one now hehe....


ill write up the article here it goes



mazdas rx8 is 2003 wheels car of the year.

In an industry where innovation is regarded as a synonym for risk - which is why we so seldom see genuine advancement - the company from hiroshima weighed the odds and set to work on something no one had done before.  Creating a truely sporting coupe with frour seats and four doors must have been a daunting task.  Were they to succeed it had to be light, low and compact, agile and quick, yet usefully spacious.  It took courage - a quality now stifled by the corporate caution of so many car makesrs.  The frosty prospect of failure must have made them shiver now and then, but mazdas given us a car deserving of both warm admiration and this Wheels award.  

The rx8\'s  doors are the key to its success. Mazda claims that with a fixed central body pillar, the rx8s wheelbase would had to grow 150mm.  The car does have what would normally termed a b-pillar, but its hidden inside the forward edge of the rear door.  When its shut the concealed tubular steel member locks  into the body stucture top and bottom with hih strength latches.  Madas claim that this design delivers safety performance similar to a conventional sedan is credible.  

Eually important, this door design means that... rah rah rah....  .

Mazdas new side ported two rotor wankel engine helps. Compact for its power output, the shortness of the non turbo rotary allowed mazda engineers to site the engine behind the front axle line without compromising the cabin package, while at the same time probiding ample crush space to absorb frontal impacts and achieving perfect 5050 weight distribution.  


Its a great engine, at least in high power form thats teamed with the six speed manual transmission.  Revving with almost surreal smoothness to a little beyond its 9000 rpm redline, it sounds and performs like a sports car engine should.  It doesnt have big piston engine torque, of course, but use  the torque multiplication of the usefully lower geared and delightfully fluent six speeder - and the engines revability - and it delivers.  


The rx8 automatic on the other hand, is no so satisfying.  Mazdas decision to team the rotary with a four speed automatic is hard to understand.  Torque converters cant cope with hih revs.  Consequently the auto rx8 redline is 7500rpm, argely account for the los of 36KW compared with the unrestrcited engine of the manual.

The automatics top gear is much taller than the manuals and with fewer hears to fill a wider spread, the haps between the ratios are huge.  Compound the problem further is the autos electronic control software.  To avoid shift shock and ensure transmission durability it willl not allow selection of first gear from second at more than 45 km/h

This equates to an engine speed of 4600rpm.  The driver is denied access to the top half of the engines orperation range, where the rotary is at its best.  

While the automatic rx8 perfroms resonalbly wellin undemanding sitiuations, such as the city or freeway, its not recommended for the enthusiastic driver.  Mazda whould have giveen the rx8 the automatic it deserves, either a sequential, one of the new double clutch sequencials or even a toroidal CVT; all would have been good choices.  All of these technologies avoid the re restrictions of a torque converter auto.  Even a five speed conventional auto would have been better.  


theres more but i cant be bothered typing it up me getting tired

anyways, dont buy an auto they suck apparantly....

[fdman]

........also.....is it a bird? Is it a plane?  No!....It\'s the"What Car"    ( March issue ) Coupe of the year. The RX-8.
Guess what came a distant second? Yes- the one and only Audi TT. There is most definitely justice in this world.


Also in the March issue of "CAR" magazine a hommage to the RX-8
by Tom Ford (p.177). Plus points to the RX8....everything...minus points............dump the beard Tom.

Justice stalks the land.


fdman