September 30, 2008
A $320,000 supercar -- for 32K?
The Truth About Car's Jonny Lieberman spent some time behind the wheel of the 2009 RX-8 R3 Sports Package, a special edition catering to the tastes of the hardcore racing crowd.
All RX-8s now come with a brilliant new 1.3-liter RENESIS two-rotor rotary engine that’s good for 232 hp and 159 lb-ft of torque. If that doesn’t sound like much to you, you’ve never driven a Wankel. You don’t take rotaries to drag strips where their obvious lack of torque is a handicap. You take rotary-powered cars to tracks, where a 9,000 rpm redline and humongous usable power band means you can leave the car in third and forget about it ’til you win the race. That’s essentially what I did while carving through some of LA’s best canyons.
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Mazda claims that all they did to tweak the R3’s handling over lesser RX-8s was to add a set of Bilsteins, 19” forged wheels and a Urethane-foam-injected front suspension cross member (whatever that is). But you know what? The results are mind altering. The R3 comes with traction control that I had on for maybe 30 seconds. You simply don’t need it. You cannot make this car break loose. I tried very hard to do so, and with the exception of making childish donuts in a parking lot, the R3 simply doesn’t surrender grip.
The R3 feels like you’re driving a closed cockpit racecar; let’s say a Lotus Se7en with a hard top and decent AC. Looking out over the hood, I kept expecting to see open wheels.
Words like “direct” and “communicative” don’t begin to do the intuitive steering justice. Every crank and tug of the wheel results in total, benign compliance.
One caveat: the ride is extremely hard, brutal even. But the teeth-chattering suspension’s perfectly-suited to the R3’s nature.
And here’s the cincher: $32k. For the same price as the awful MINI Cooper Clubman S, you can have one of the world’s finest-handling sports cars. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that the RX-8 R3 handles well for a $32k car. I’m saying it handles better than a $320k car. Or, more importantly, whatever you’re driving.
I think he likes it.
The comments following the review feature some pretty heated discussion about the merits -- or defects (depending on where you stand) -- of the RX-8's Wankel rotary engine, but I think the Mazda's advocates get the better of the argument.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 30, 2008 10:01 AM
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