Rare Bosozoku cars: Mazda Savanna RX3
It is a bit weird: in contrary of the Mazda Cosmo AP RX5 the Mazda Savanna RX3 is a very rare Bosozoku styled car. We could only find two pictures of one single car!
Bosozoku style Mazda Savanna RX3
Even though the Cosmo AP RX5 is a much bigger and meaner looking car, the Savanna RX3 is looking a lot meaner than its predecessor the Mazda Familia Rotary R100 and should really appeal all petrolheads.
Bosozoku style Mazda Savanna RX3
The Mazda Savanna RX3 also had a big racing history: it debuted in 1971 at the Fuji 500 Tourist Trophy race and won instantly! It came just in time to prevent the Nissan Skyline GT-Rs from getting 50 consecutive wins for the Japanese Grand Prix!
Winning Mazda Savanna RX3 on Fuji Speedway Tourist Trophy
If you are interested in this race, Japanese Nostalgic Car blog wrote an excellent article about this race!
The RX3 then continued to race for many years afterwards and even got over 100 victories at the end of 1976. It even is still being used for many different races nowadays: amoung them dragraces as well:
Mazda RX3 drag racer
The RX3 is based upon the Mazda Familia 808 platform (in some countries called 818), but then powered by a rotary engine instead of the inline 4 of the 808/818. The outside of the car remained the same except for the twin round headlights at the front and the round taillights at the back of the car.
Factory stock Mazda Savanna RX3 4 door saloon
On the inside the interior was a bit more sportier than the standard Familia: the dash remained the same but it featured semi bucket seats.
Mazda Savanna RX3 interior
What really helped was the weight of the car: the Familia only weights 865kg, so adding a powerfu
l rotary to such car makes it an instant winning combination! However the car still featured leaf springs and a live axle, so the handling of the car was not as good as the RX2 Capella. But what can you expect from a family car?
Factory stock Mazda Savanna RX3 4 door saloon
The Savanna was not only limited to the Coupe version of the Familia, but also delivered on the 4 door saloon and 5 door station van.
In Japan, Australia and Europe the Savanna was delivered with the 10A engine, while in the US only the 12A featured on the car. Starting from 1975 all it got an update and since then all Savanna RX3s got the 12A engine.
Mazda 10A Wankel engine
Of course the sporty image of the RX3 had to be mentioned over and over again. Take for example the poster for the RX3 SP:
Mazda RX3 SP: not a slowpoke
All in all I don’t really understand why the Savanna RX3 is not a popular bosozoku style car: it looks bad, it had racing history (with wide fenders!), it features a rotary and best of all it was also available in 4 door saloons! A large package of elements which create a good foundation for a popular bosozoku car!
Maybe that is the whole point: it just reminded too much of the Familia family car. Or maybe it became an instant classic and the price remained too high during the 80s and 90s? Or maybe it was just the wrong car: the car that killed the 50th consecutive victory of the Skyline? Or maybe it was too small: the car is the size of a Nissan Sunny or Toyota Corolla. Who knows?
This entry was posted in Rare Bosozoku cars and tagged mazda rx3, mazda savanna, Rare Bosozoku cars by banpei with 4 comments
I had one of these little cars in college in Texas. It was very beat up, the seats were made of duct tape, and the blue paint had faded to dust. Just for fun I would drive it as fast as I could down I35 (not recommended.) I got it up to 135 mph (topped out the speedometer.) No one believed me. So I did it again. Fortunately no police saw me, but if they had they probably would have just laughed. I didn’t know this actually was a Japanese race car! It did have a tendency to overheat, especially in Texas summers. Macho guys would come over to help me, (the “little lady” – at that time) and they’d take one look at the Wankel engine, scratch their heads, then silently shuffle away. Thanks for bringing back memories of my long gone little friend!
I know most of these fender flares are one-off, but some of them look like they can be bought. Could someone tell me where to get flares like the one on this Mazda?
You can buy a lot of the bosozoku frp parts on auction.yahoo.co.jp, like this seller heros7009:
http://openuser.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/user/heros7009
You can get the parts through a man in the middle like a renowned company, like Rinkya for example.
Thank you so much Banpei! I was searching Yahoo Auctions Japan but didn’t find the flares I like. Your link was a huge help!
Congrats on your wedding! Pics?