Zoom-Zoom, Slurp-Slurp

Early RX-7s rarely see 20 mpg highway and can be driven down into single digits; owners laugh at later claims of 30 mpg

by Rob Sass

By the late 1970s, the sports car world was looking bleak indeed. A 1975 Road & Track comparison test of the Maserati Merak, Lamborghini Urraco, and Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 showed none of these detoxed beasts to be capable of a sub-eight-second 0–60 mph run. It was far worse for mainstream sports cars.

The Triumph TR6 was gone, replaced by the trainwreck that was the TR7. The MG B was wheezing along with just 68 hp and comical bumpers. The Datsun 240Z had morphed into the bloated two-tone discomobile that was the 280ZX, and the Porsche of the future—the 924—was an overpriced, underpowered, hard-riding mistake.

In short, the sports car world was ripe for the second coming of the original 240Z— and that’s just what Mazda sought to do. In fact, the original ad for the 1979 RX-7 had images of the MG TC and the 240Z in the background.

Mazda introduced the RX-7 in the spring of 1978 as a ’79 model. It was an instant hit, and 474,565...