(first posted 5/26/2018) The Cosmo was Mazda’s last shot at making (or holding on to) some inroads in the passenger car market. The RX 2 had made such a splash, with its V8-like performance in a compact Japanese car. But the energy crisis put a serious crimp into Mazda’s high hopes, given the intrinsic thirst of the Wankel engine.
The fallback was a more upscale sporty coupe, with decided American design overtones. A Colonnade Mazda, actually, which was not very well received. Mazda was struggling, and would soon ditch the rotary except for the sports car RX-7.
“Colonnade Mazda” – Paul, no wonder I have always liked these! You managed to unearth one of the few, vintage Mazda Cosmo articles I didn’t xerox from the library back in the day. I suppose that an 11.2 0-60 time wasn’t terrible for 1976. I always liked that these seemed like rotary-powered, 7/8-scale personal luxury coupes.
Interesting road test in that it seems a bit unusual for Road & Track to ding an otherwise seemingly decent car so much because of its styling. However, they do have a point – the Cosmo manages to be less attractive than the RX4 hardtop even though the latter got a rather garish new grille for 1976.
This generation Cosmo also came in a nochtback coupe sold (and likely designed) for the North American market.
I’ve always liked this car. It’s like a little Oldsmobile only with a banjo steering and cool ‘L’ or ‘U’ shaped taillights. It certainly would of been a more enjoyable car to own than a Mustang II or Monza Towne Coupe.
Interestingly, while the notchback (complete with optional vinyl roof) was designed for the US market, by the time it was being built, the Cosmo had failed so completely in the US that they never brought it here.
Also interestingly, the notchback sold much better in Japan than the fastback.
I had a friend in HS who’s dad went all in on the Rotary, he was an engineer of some sort but don’t remember exactly. Anyway his daily driver was a Rotary Pickup while his wife’s car was a Cosmo. Not exactly a practical combo for a family with 2 teens. I never got to ride in it but I thought it was much cooler than the Toyotas and Datsuns that were much more common.
That 110 horsepower is not bad for what is basically a 12 cylinder (2 rotors = 6 power pulses per revolution) 120 cubic inch internal combustion engine, which is why these were so smooth running. And the mileage was very good for the time. These should have been a hit.
I think part of why these cars struggled was due to the rotary engine being such a new/untested idea. I had a co-worker who was looking for a small truck in the mid 80s, and when I suggested she look at Mazda’s B2200 she said she didn’t want a truck with a rotary engine. And she was surprised to find that the Mazda had a “normal” piston engine.
Even the ad reproduced here makes what I feel was a colossal mistake: comparing the Cosmo to run-of-the-mill cars like the Pinto and Vega. At the very least, it should have been compared to a Mustang II, a Datsun Z car, and a Camaro. They should have capitalized on the fact that the Cosmo was a cut above and really played up the available power.
In the mid 70s I went for a test RIDE in an RX-2, and the salesman naturally pointed out the ease of acceleration.
Wankels looked promising, however there were always issues that seemed to be difficult – if not impossible – to overcome.
Poor fuel economy, rotor tip sealing problems, oil consumption and higher exhaust emissions have all been mentioned as obstacles that needed to be overcome. Whether or not these items were eventually and successfully addressed is open for debate; in the meantime, piston engines managed to make significant strides in efficiency and drivability.
I also wonder if some of the early resistance to Wankels by a number manufacturers had to do with the double whammy of having to pay for development to overcome the issues listed above, AND pay a licensing fee, since the design was covered by patents.
“Higher exhaust emissions” requires some important qualifications, though. A big part of why the rotary almost took off in the early ’70s is that it produced fewer oxides of nitrogen than contemporary piston engines (a function, ironically, of the poorer thermal efficiency that contributes to the rotary’s higher specific fuel consumption). After the Muskie Act was enacted, automakers were really nervous about the NOx standards, which some manufacturers insisted were impossible except for very small-displacement engines. So, the rotary’s emissions profile looked very attractive for a time, which is also why Japan passed the tax breaks cjiguy mentions below, which made cars like the Cosmo AP popular for a while.
Ironically, I used your series of articles on Mazda’s rotary-engined vehicles (among other sources) to fact-check my comment. 🙂
As you pointed out in part one of that series and partially stated above, the higher fuel consumption that produced lower oxides of nitrogen also produced higher emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. So it seems to be a question of which emissions were higher.
Makes you wonder how things would have turned out had the position engine been seen as a technological dead end. It wasn’t, of course, and fortunately its development carried on, allowing us to have piston engines that are a good compromise of power, efficiency and relative cleanliness.
The 1977 Ford Thunderbird’s B-pillar window looked similar to the Cosmo’s. But unlike the T-bird, the Cosmo “opera window” rolled down.
When Wheels tested the Cosmo (just called RX5 here), they had a photo of a dog sticking its head out the window, and cheekily suggested that Mazda had done that just for dogs!
A Mazda that I really like (yes, I find it attractive, wish the interior was a bit more sporting, a bit less brougham), and saw VERY rarely in western Pennsylvania. Road and Track was being unduly harsh on the car, probably because Mazda didn’t bring out what THEY thought Mazda should have brought out.
Then again, they weren’t wrong. Just dump the rotary in favor of a DOHC four cylinder, and they called it.
Idle thought: I wonder what a mild-hybrid rotary powertrain would be like. The battery would give a nice shove from a stop, and there would be plenty of fun, smooth power at high revs. Being just a “mild hybrid” system, it wouldn’t need a huge battery, so it might still be appropriate for a sports car.
Had a JDM model – same as US version except RHD. Typical dearth of low end torque but punch it at 30 and off it went to the 9000 rpm redline. Always felt very “light.” Never had a problem in 2 years of ownership. Jim.
In 1976 “Road & Track” was deep into their German car bias period while still foaming over fragile-in-America French and Italian cars.
IMO the Cosmo deserved a better road test review than was given.
I find it strange that these R&T reviews have no writer bylines. Were they attempting to imply the review reflects the collective views of all those who tested a car for their magazine? Like news journalists, readers have favourite writers whose writing and views we may value and appreciate, or trust more than others. With no byline, who knows who in their editorial staff reviewed a car? Or how many people’s opinions an article expresses. One, two or five writers views? By having a byline(s), it shows the writer personally stands behind their views as well.
I appreciated the way Car and Driver and Motor Trend always named the primary writer reviewing a car. And added the Counterpoint side bar reflecting the other testing reviewer’s individual thoughts on a car. I liked the writing of say, Eric Dahlquist, Tony Swan, and Kevin Smith at Motor Trend. It adds value, and credibility, to an article if it’s written by a respected writer we can identify. Rather than looking at a magazine’s masthead for names of writers we recognize in the list of journalists on staff at the time.
If I see Paul’s byline on an article here at CC, it brings much value to the article. A must read in other words.
Given how dedicated R&T appeared to above average quality in their reviews, not telling readers the writers who reviewed a car, is surprising.
I do think their opinion of the interior and dashboard is harsh. The nap and plushness of the velour may be too much. But the interior looks well done otherwise.
Excellent comments!
I DO agree.
Thank you. Standing by your individual views is important if you want to appear credible as a journalist. A article’s byline is a fundamental way to earn trust. Especially when hoping to appear credible and objective when reviewing a product.
I have often criticized the Big Three here at CC, but I think this is not really fair to the manufacturers who’s cars are being judged. Sometimes harshly, by an anonymous team of writers. With a writers byline on an article, we can make our own assessment towards their qualifications as reviewers.
It’s standard practice in journalism. And only fair to the car manufacturers, and the readers.
I rather like this line presented in the article; “It’s as though the top people at Toyo Kogyo, Mazda’s parent company in Japan, are trying to design a car they think Americans will like rather than building a car they like and selling it in America.”
That statement sounded good and all upon face value to us Americans, but that’s not how the Japanese responded to the Cosmo AP. They loved the damn things, selling over 50k the first year alone. Keep in mind this car was not cheap in Japan, where Mazda didn’t really have market experience selling luxury products yet (these were $6,000 cars in Japanese Yen; Toyota Crown/Nissan Cedric money). The big draw really was the rotary. Here, a US buyer would see so-so power and fuel economy relative to purchase price. In Japan, with very expensive road taxes, you got a fairly swift and frugal coupe for a fraction of the typical associated road tax within the class. This same taxation system allowed the first Savanah RX-7’s to see similar sales success just a few years later. It’s funny looking back, but Mazda really did make this Cosmo to Japanese tastes first and foremost. I can see the styling a bit on the eccentric side, but it’s downright tame compared to what Nissan was making then.
I assume contemporary Japanese buyers also had different expectations in terms of torque. There were a lot of 2-liter sixes, sold for prestige and smoothness rather than performance, so in that realm, the 13B was a pretty reasonable choice. Later, there were high-tech turbocharged, supercharged, and 24V small sixes for that segment, but that was still a few years away when these were new.
Also, the Japanese market in this era was hardly less enamored of personal luxury coupes than the U.S. was.
I sometimes wonder what cars Mazda could and should have built, had they not been seduced by the money pit/dead end of the Wankel engine
Today Mazda still builds slightly unusual cars for purists, so Mazda probably would still be exactly where it is today if it had never built a rotary engine.
Never was a fan of the Cosmo / RX5. The best thing about it was the availability of a 5 speed box and the nice Chromadora inspired alloy wheels. Sadly these do not fit on a RX4, unless one changed the stud pattern.
The piston engined version marketed as the 121 was panned here as it was a slug, it’s 2 litre was down on power compared to the 929 and it was substantially heavier. Nonetheless a few 121s and the later 121L notch backs were sold here back in the day (some said it was Mazda’s answer to the Celica) , but the RX5 was a fair bit more expensive than the RX4, so was never a common sight. The styling did not help……
Interesting point in the final paragraph, re Mazda being likely to improve their fortunes in the US by putting the rotary engine into a more sporty car. Seems like Mazda took that to heart when the RX-7 came in a couple of years after that. Haven’t seen any RX-4s/929s from that era in the flesh in years!
I could never understand this car.
They had the RX4, which seemed quite a nice car inside and went well. It even came as a proper hardtop. I coudn’t grasp what the RX5 offered. Same engine (I assume the same tune) but weird, very American styling which didn’t quite gel somehow. It looked very heavy through the body sides with a disproportionately light superstructure that almost seemed to have come from another car. And that funky side window treatment.
I guess the key to unlocking this is the American design theme. A luxury coupe made plenty of sense to you guys, and made sense to the Japanese, but just did not compute to Australians. Yet an acquaintance got one as his first car – I could never understand why. I admired the interior and smoothness, but held my tongue on the looks and never asked why he chose it.
It didn’t make sense to us either. It was all about a “Take it or leave it” attitude, towards us. We used to envy at what versions of even our domestic models were offered to other markets
Yes, in the seventies the Japanese often seemed to have peculiar ideas of what export markets would want. They sent us the ‘formal roof’ version of the Cosmo as well as this fastback, but the formal one, called 121L (for some reason), had a lot of blank panels inside for features we were denied, which gave it a bit of a bargain-basement look inside – whatever the L stood for, it sure wasn’t luxury. Despite living in our second largest city at the time, I only ever saw two of them.
The next Cosmo was much more European in style, and more popular here.