Mazda only made one rotary-powered front-wheel drive car, the Luce R130. The Luce (Italian for “light”) was a luxury coupe designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, who also created the Volkswagen Golf, Lotus Esprit, Ducati 860 GT/GTS, and BMW M1. Fewer than 1,000 units were built during the Luce’s brief run from 1969 through 1972, and only around 200 are thought to still exist. The 13A twin-rotor rotary engine in the Luce displaced 1.3 liters, putting out 124 horsepower and 127 pound-feet of torque. It was never used in another car.
The Luce’s 13A was topped by a Hitachi-Stromberg four-barrel carburetor. So equipped, the Luce could go from 0 to 60 mph in 8.3 seconds and hit a top speed of 119 mph. It was only sold in Japan and had a sticker price of 1.75 million yen. Accounting for inflation and currency conversion, that equates to around $40,000 today.
[Featured image by Charles01 via Wikimedia Commons|Cropped and scaled|CC-BY-SA 3.0]
