by HoTWire
4. September 2008 03:52
A number of the cars that have featured in our rare cars category have been one offs or very limited run exotic cars. Some times they have been from obscure short lived manufacturers or obtuse special editions. This car is none of those things. It is however still a rare car.
In 1965 Mazda unvieled the first result of working with car designer Bertone, the very pretty Mazda Luce. Available as a 1500 or 1800 with a conventional 4cylinder engine the car was a relative success both in and out of its Japanese homeland. At the time Mazda was continuing to develop its Rotary engine and supplied a Luce based car with its 13A called the Luce R130, or Mazda M13P.
The car differs from the standard 4cylinder Luce not only by being a very attractive 2 door coupe shape but by virtue of the fact that it is front wheel drive, the only Mazda rotary car to drive the front wheels. Production numbered less than 1,000 cars, so it wass rare even when new, now days very limited numbers survive. Mazda have one at their museum and we'd love to see any pictures anyone has of them "out in the wild". At least one of the cars was used for racing in Japan as can be seen on the Okura Auto gallery page
The R130 was essentially a triumph of technology over sales volume, however the car served as a basis for the RX4 that followed, with at least one rotary powered car making up part of the line up of the Luce range until the final Mazda 929 in 1990.
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