Mazda RX-8

October 30, 2006 - For all the trash I talk on Mazda's "Zoom Zoom" ad campaign, I sure do love its vehicles. Every Mazda I've driven -- from the standard Mazda3 to the minivan-like Mazda5 to the turbocharged AWD MazdaSpeed6 -- is the very definition of a "driver's car". I have yet to drive a bad Mazda, so it should be no surprise that the manufacturer of all that is zoom zoom is quickly becoming one of my favorite companies. So even though I've had a hefty amount of seat time in many of Mazda's finest vehicles, I really haven't had the chance to experience its flagship sports car -- the Mazda RX-8. Sure, we've featured the RX-8 on IGN Cars more than a few times -- but I wasn't the one behind the wheel for those reviews. I did take an RX-8 for a few hot laps around Laguna Seca a year back, and you can click here to read about the whole experience. For those of you too lazy to click around, let me summarize the driving experience as such: absolutely perfect handling, but the 1.3-liter engine needs to be kept in the upper part of the rev band if one wants to keep the car's speed up. I only had about 5 or 6 minutes in the car, but that was more than enough time for me to figure out that I had to have this car for a whole week -- if not longer.

So a year later I finally get an RX-8 to review. I'm still not 100-percent sold on the car's looks -- especially the front fenders. They look all right from the front or the side, but they look awful from a rear 3/4 view. I'd prefer to see the fenders actually sit flush with the rest of the car, but that's just me. Even so, the RX-8 is such a blast to drive, I can easily overlook the car's oddly-shaped front. I don't know if the suicide-style doors were designed as an afterthought or a gimmick, but I gotta admit: they are kind of cool. I do think that, had the car been designed and built as a two-door, the RX-8 would look a whole lot better. Of course, I also think that the RX-8 should have been designed as a two-seater, but then that would make the car an RX-7. But I'm getting off-point and should probably move on to talking about the car's interior. I don't know if I shrink during the day or what, but I find the RX-8's headroom to feel pretty tight first thing in the morning and slightly better in the afternoon. I still can't find a perfectly comfortable driving position for my 6-foot-1 frame, but the car just feels better later on in the day. Maybe I'm just less cranky as the days go on... I don't know. Still, it's hard to feel bad while driving the RX-8, as it is set up to deliver a first-class driving experience.