Auto News 5

Mazda's timing was perfect. In the late 1970s, British and Italian sports car makers were hanging by their fingernails, C3 Corvettes were aging ungracefully, Datsun's lovable Z-Car was evolving into the foppish 280ZX, and Porsche's 924 suffered from a hodgepodge of Volkswagen and Audi components. So the Mazda RX-7 that arrived in the spring of 1978 (as an early '79 model) was the answer to unspoken sports car dreams: it was attractive, fun to drive, and -- with a sticker as low as $6395 -- bargain priced. As a bonus, the RX-7 was powered by a rotary engine, which at the time was only one step down from a turbine as a source of wonder and amazement.