Induction

Rice burners. Jap crap. These are among the not-very-nice terms some fans used to describe Allan Moffat’s Mazda RX7 (and Nissan’s Bluebird Turbo) when Moffat dared to challenge the home-grown V8 supremacy with, of all things, Japanese rotary power. To many Ford fans, this was unthinkable. But such was the harsh reality that had to be faced at the end of 1980: there was zero prospect of Moffat racing a Falcon full-time the following year and beyond. As Dick Johnson slipped into the role of new Ford folk hero, neatly replacing Moffat, the arrival of Mazda was the only thing that kept Moffat in the game.

What followed was a four-year, rollercoaster ride of excitement, elation, disappointment and controversy – more or less just like any other period in Moffat’s career!

As detailed in our cover story on Moffat’s RX7 campaign, the political arguments began long before the car was even approved for racing. Green-lighting it for Group C was a controversial decision, and certainly it’s true that a solid case can be mounted against the Japanese coupe ever having been approved as a touring car. Then again, there were technical anomalies to be found with most of the other contenders (no doubt Moffat would have loved the chance to race a factorybacked Falcon XD with an approved homologated weight taken from the six-cylinder model and not the 351 V8 version!) – Group C regs had a remarkably exible quality to them as the 1980s began, and they only got increasingly rubbery as the decade went on.

Group C in the ’80s might be most fondly remembered for its ‘big banger’ V8s, but in reality the eld boasted the most diverse array of different outright contenders Australian touring car racing had ever seen – something which was broadened even further by the inclusion of the RX7.

It was an automotive smorgasbord. Across the GM, Ford, Nissan, Mazda and BMW competing models were no less than three different V8 engines, in 5.8-, 5.7- and 5.0-litre capacities, a 3.5-litre straight six, 1.8-litre turbo four, and the (nominally) 1.2-litre rotary.

Love it or hate it, with its sleek, low-slung

sportscar body style and the rotary engine’s wailing rasp – hardly a thing of aural beauty but utterly unmistakable – the RX7 was an interesting and colourful addition to the Group C ranks.

Bathurst ultimately proved literally a mountain too big to climb, but pretty much everywhere else the little rotaries could, and did, make life a misery for their larger-engined rivals.

Moffat scored consecutive Sandown 400 wins in 1982 and ’83. His de ant post-race ‘victory’ gesture in ’82, arms outstretched as if to incite the crowd, probably half of which was booing and the other half was cheering, remains one of the most enduring images of our sport. Together with his ’83 ATCC victory, it was a pretty decent haul.

As for the RX7 model itself, ’83 was the highpoint. Mazdas won every title on offer that year: in addition to Moffat’s ATCC, Terry Shiel took out the AMSCAR Series, and Peter McLeod the endurance championship.

And even while the rotary never cracked it at Bathurst (but two thirds and one second place was a respectable return from Moffat’s four attempts), it was a familiar presence on the Mountain from 1981 through ’84. And plentiful, too: there was no less than 14 of them in the ’83 James Hardie 1000 – only four less than the number of Commodores and four more than the Falcon tally. Indeed, only in ’82 were there as many Falcon starters as RX7s. The numbers show how readily teams and drivers embraced the car.

While Moffat might not have been particularly helpful when it came to assisting Mazda privateers (which is to put it mildly), the RX7 was probably the perfect privateer machine of the Group C era.

It was comparatively easy to drive, although, like any good race machine, difficult to extract that last ounce of performance that’s usually the difference between winning and making up the numbers. It was also reliable, and was without the appetite for brakes and tyres of the bigger cars. For many cashstrapped privateers, the RX7 was a cheaper and better option than a Falcon or Commodore.

Granted the RX7 may not t everyone’s bill of what a muscle car should be. But in Australian touring car racing, the Mazda RX7 in the 1980s was what the Torana XU-1 was in the 1970s.