The Almighty Mazda RX7 FD3S

The Mazda RX7 FD3S is one of the fastest cars you will ever drive. With its rotary 1.3 litre REW engine which many insurance companies and road tax bands class as a 2.6 litre you begin to realise why. From the factory the Mazda RX7 FD3S came equipped with twin turbos, yes that is two turbos. This is something you very rarely see and I can only think of a handful of cars like this. This turbo setup produces approximately 276bhp. It has a top speed on paper of 153 miles per hour but a lot of owners have realised it carries on well past this! The 0-60 time of 5.3 seconds means that you get up to 100 mph in no time especially as it only weighs 1282kg.

Unfortunately the Mazda RX7 FD3S is no longer produced as it was manufactured from 1992 to 2002. In this time 68,589 were made and in the UK were sold for £38,000 in 1992. It was the Japanese supercar of its time and Mazda have not made a faster car since. Instead they made a commercial decision to produce the RX8 which was naturally aspirated so was no where near as fast, but still had high running costs in every aspect: petrol, insurance and tax. Not forgetting the Achilles heel being the rotor tips wearing away causing the engines to detonate, commonly around the premature age of 60,000 miles. In this case the engine would need a rebuild costing around £3,000.

 Forgetting the rotary engines bad points, the feeling you get when the twin turbos are rocketing you down the road is priceless. If you haven't been in one of these I would suggest to add this to the list of things you do before you die!!