The Mazda RX500. What is it, and why is it in this game?
Hell if I know.
If you know me, you probably know I'm a big fan of Mazdas, especially their Rotary Powered sports cars. Yet, here's a Rotary Powered one-off concept car painstakingly preserved and restored by Mazda, and faithfully recreated in Gran Turismo Sport, literally with "Powered By ROTARY" scrawled across the wedge shaped back of this thing, and I really don't have much of anything to say about it. Because, for starters, what even the heck is it?
Hell if I know.
Is it a mind blowing concept car that puts down insane numbers unheard of during its time, or look so instantly radical that it becomes a poster car for 8 year old kids who know nothing about cars? The NA "982"cc 10A Inline 2 Rotor in this door wedge shaped car produces a respectable 247HP (184kW), but the folks over at Mercedes were making 4 Rotors producing upwards of 350HP from their Wankel Engine concepts. Does it showcase the different thinking of idiosyncratic engineers to offer a peek at how different a future we could've had, then? The RX500 is supposedly a showcase of road safety technology that might have become as commonplace, or even required, as Volvo's 3 point seatbelts, but if asked to name what those safety features are, I, and I suspect many others as well, would be hard pressed to name more than just a pair of stupid green lights atop the brake lights, to confuse the poor bloke unfortunate enough to be behind you approaching a red light. I mean... if you want to make a light that lets others know when a car is accelerating, shouldn't those be in the front? The aforementioned brake lights by the way, are the exact same lights as the turn signals, so your car literally will give no indication of its brakes being applied if you turn your hazards on. This thing literally has six, count them, SIX, lights on each side of the car, and the design team had to share a light for the hazards and brakes?
So what exactly makes this car safe? Does it have ABS? Does it come equipped as a standard with a hammer in the glovebox? Lane departure warning? A choker to strangle a stupid millennial for texting and driving? Cruise control? A loaded and cocked shotgun aimed to blast the intoxicated brain out of anyone that attempts to drive under the influence? Crumple zones? A Traffic Safety Amulet from Take Shrine? Rollover protection? A speaker that blasts, "DOKE, BAKA YAROU!" to pedestrians who don't hear it coming? Blind spot monitoring? Does it insure itself? Does it even have airbags?
Hell if I know.
Yes, of course it's unfair to apply modern safety standards and technology to a car in the 70s. Nonetheless, it's just difficult for me, a stupid millennial, to really appreciate the RX500's supposed safety features when I can't see any. This car is just so insignificant that I don't think I'd even know it existed at all had it not been for Gran Turismo, the shining beacon of safe and sensible driving. It really does feel to me like PD flew over to Hiroshima to scan and record some Mazda cars, like the ND Roadster and Atenza, and Mazda just happened to have the RX500 in the same room and said to PD, "we'll throw this in too to sweeten the deal", sort of like the cheap toy you didn't want that comes bundled with breakfast cereal that immediately ends up in the trash bin the moment you consume your cereal. I mean, logically speaking, there must've been better reasons as to why PD would put in the 6 months of work to get this car into the game, but hell if I know what the reasons were.
I mean, if PD had plane tickets to Hiroshima and Mazda's cooperation, you'd think they might have tried to get the R360 in the game. Or the Carol. Or the Cosmo Sport... or a SA RX-7... or a Eunos Cosmo 20B... or an AZ-1... or did a better job with the 787B. Or an EV Demio, or dual fuel RX-8. Or any RX-8. I know my doctor is right in saying that I need to watch my salt intake, and I'm not sure how true the argument of, "it's not a this or that scenario, it's either having this or not having this at all" that has been had many times over on GTPlanet is. Whatever the cases may be though, I just find it exceptionally hard to take a look at the RX500 and think anything else other than, "why are you here in this game? In N300? What do you even do? What are you even supposed to be? What's the 500 in your name supposed to mean? Why isn't there a hyphen between the 'RX' and the numbers in your name?"
Because hell if I know the answers to any of the above.
Ahh, but it's a Rotary Powered sports car by Mazda, and excruciatingly rarely for the manufacturer that prides itself on doing things differently all the time, is rear mid-engined! Maybe, as per Mazda's M.O. with their best drivers' cars such as the RX-7, RX-8, and Roadster, the RX500 might not be something that makes sense simply by looking at a spec sheet. And so the question is begged more than usual this time: how does it drive?
Hell if I k-nah, just kidding. It drives bad.
It's an old clunker on bias ply tyres and soft suspension hooked up to an open diff. Need I say more? Sure, the car is light, and therefore very agile through corners, but the complete letdown of a suspension and open diff somehow imbue an agile car with a belying sense of sloppiness and lethargy, distilling away any and all fun from the experience. The front end is so stupidly light that you have to brake hard and brake early for any corner just to get weight over the front tyres, which don't feel like they have any bite in them whatsoever, making the car feel slow to drive even though it's cornering fast. Because of the soft front end, attempting to take a corner without the stronger engine braking of 2nd brings you on an express, non stop trip to understeer city, population: you and a wall that will become your impromptu, makeshift gravestone. And if one of your rear wheels run over rumble strips or grass? Prepare to fishtail and spin like a 70s MR Corvette. The gearbox is widely spread 4 speed, and the synchros need to do so much work during each upshift that I think I'd sooner get an RX-9 than 4th gear. The choice of a 4 speed is not only unfortunate, but also perplexing, seeing as the 1967 Toyota 2000GT we tested just two weeks ago had already set the precedent for 5 speeds in performance cars, a memo the Cosmo Sport got as soon as 1968. First gear in the RX500 feels specifically made for hill starts with a Rotary Engine that needs defibrillation from idle, resulting in wheelspin city up to about 60km/h, which you'll hit and shift out of first in just about two seconds, and promptly never see again outside of the pits or digging yourself out of a trackside wall. To its credit, 4th gear still pulls strong — almost too strong, because this thing is gear limited to 259km/h (161mph) and drag/ powerband limited to 244km/h (152mph), when Rotary Engines thrive on the top end, and you really get the sense that the 10A in the RX500 desperately wants to do and give more with a fifth forward cog.
Of course, no dialogue about a Rotary powered sports car is complete without discussing... the Rotary power. Just like the utterly horrible digital depiction of the 787B in Gran Turismo Sport, the one good takeaway from the RX500 experience is its engine, a "491x2"cc Inline 2 Rotor that's naturally aspirated and carbureted, both traits being excruciating rarities among Rotary Engines represented in the Gran Turismo series, let alone when put together. Fire it up, and the car immediately makes a strong impression even before the gearbox is engaged, as the car vigorously inhales with a vengeance through carburetors to make the infamous Rotary "brap brap brap" at idle, and hot damn it is loud even at an otherwise peaceful standstill. Being an NA Rotary, it is naturally peaky and begs to be wrung and kept near to its sportbike-like 8,500rpm redline, which is done via a proper manual gearbox. And because the car was never designed for a consumer, there is nothing aside from a thin transparent plastic piece separating the engine compartment from the cockpit. It certainly doesn't sound like there's any sound deadening, engine covers, heat shielding, etc. in the car, because there is an unparalleled rawness and pureness of the sound in the cockpit that's more readily associated to a motorcycle experience than a car. Not only is it loud, pure, and proud, but unlike the digital 787B, the digital RX500 sounds utterly glorious and genuine.
The moment you start to get moving is the moment when the flame spitting engine really starts to show its true songstress talents. As with all Rotary Engines, there is an alluring and addictive smoothness to the way it revs that somehow permeates even through a TV screen and speakers, and it's hard to not be lulled by its furious lullaby into thinking that it can keep on revving higher and higher forever. If you'll forgive my bad writing and lack of more apt analogies, listening to a Rotary Engine rev is almost like watching an attractive person strip. Yeah, they look amazing now, but encourage them more and more, and they somehow find a way to give you a better and better experience, creating a positive feedback loop in your brain in and of itself, so much so that every time I smack the rev limiter on the 10A Rotary, I'm utterly dumbfounded at the notion that something so magical and trance inducing could have a physical limit. This thing has a redline? Hell if I knew from watching the rev counter rise, or feeling the engine beg for more abuse. Mated to the aforementioned 4 speed manual, each gear has to cover a wide speed range, enticingly drawing out the procedure of watching, hearing, feeling, experiencing this thing's dramatically slow and sure approach to its climatic 8.5k redline. On downshifts, not only will it spit flames as any good Rotary should, but like most Rotaries, is oddly receptive to being revved past its redline on heel toe downshifts, just as extra icing on the feedback loop cake.
As per Mazda methodology, their cars are "more than just a car with a good engine in it". (Yes Vic, the only reason why I keep bugging you to write reviews is so I can rip them off, because if I can't slipstream you in a race, I'll slipstream you in writing!) The RX500 is still a serious performer as far as lap times are concerned. I might dislike its typical old car handling traits, but on tracks where its 244km/h top speed doesn't come into play, the RX500 will more than put up a fight with a better balanced, tauter, more powerful, and much more revered younger sibling, the RX-7 Spirit R. Back in Gran Turismo 6, this car was an absolute rocket for its PP rating as well. Needless to say, its performance is respectable even by today's standards, and one can only imagine how mind blowing it must've been back in the 70s if anyone outside Mazda was allowed to sample it and give an unbiased account of it. I'm sure it is spaceship fast in the appendages of a proper alien, but me personally, I just don't click with the car, and it has spat me out either face first or butt backwards in nearly every race I've attempted with it. If you're not a freakishly adaptive alien, some chemistry with the car may be required for you to be effective in it; it's not a car for everyone.
Unfortunately, while the RX500's on track prowess is very in-character of a Mazda Rotary sports car, the same cannot be said for its utter mess of an interior. As previously mentioned, the RX500 was never meant to be put into production, and it becomes immediately clear the moment you look past its awe-inspiring butterfly doors into its cockpit. Aside from the lack of insulation between the cockpit and engine compartment, the steering wheel is oddly offset from the centre of the driver's seat, the A pillars and curved windshield make for a very odd perspective from the car, the rear view out the cockpit mirror is questionable at best, and the side mirrors are in the perfect position to be blocked by the A pillars. Safety! Mazda as a manufacturer today prides itself on driving ergonomics, ease and intuition of use, and cars that handle as though an extension of the drivers' bodies. To these ends, they produce cars whose selling points are that they are more fun to drive than those of their rivals, and that adamantly refuse to have touchscreens in them, which is grounds enough to marry a person for in my book, if Mazda was a person and not a company. And so to see a car that has its driving position, ergonomics, driving dynamics, and even doors as whack as a Countach's is beyond bizarre, and a strong testament to how far Mazda as a company has moved on in the fifty years since the RX500, and in turn, how utterly irrelevant it is.
Apparently it was originally supposed to be fitted with another Rotary Engine of some sort that revs to 15k rpm, according to Vic. I don't know how true that is, because I personally can't find anything to that effect in my extensive two seconds on Google, which is more time than one would spend in first on a track in this thing. Lending credence to Vic's claims, the tach reads up to said 15k rpm, when the engine redlines at 8.5k, meaning that the car barely uses half of its tachometer. In fact, the whole car seemingly promises an amazing showcase of technology and fun, and even offers peeks at moments of sheer brilliance in areas that no one else can do better than it, but those strengths just somehow feel out of place in a totally disjointed product. Its stated purpose feels like nothing more than a cheap, transparent excuse to show off the one thing it does well. But that doesn't stop its creators from promptly writing cheques the vertically sliced off butt can't cash, resulting in a product that not only feels markedly lacking, but is also marred by a lot of confusion from its consumers who don't understand its true purpose due to poor marketing. As a result of all this, the product feels almost literally half butted.
......
I think I understand perfectly why the RX500 is in Gran Turismo Sport now.
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