Issue 110 – 2019
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ormoyle
or’s Induction
R
ice 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 RX
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 factory-
backed 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 V
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-slungsportscar 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 ’
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 cash-
strapped 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.