Talk:Mazda R100

Picture

It should be noted that the black bonnet/hood was not a standard feature of the car. Also, I´m not sure at all if this really is a R100 (and not a Mazda 1000/1300), as it features square headlights (at least the US-R100s had round units). --328cia (talk) 14:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't prove it one way or the other thirty years later: and certainly I never looked under the hood / bonnet. But certainly it was badged as a R100! Back then, virtually all cars exported to the US had round headlights even though square (well, mostly as in this case quasi-rectangular) headlights had been increasingly fashionable in Europe since the mid 1960s. So you get Mercedes Benz and Honda (and, and , and) having to remove elegant fancy shaped lights and substitute individual - initially round but subsequently more squarish) ones purely for cars exported to the US market. This was simply a function of the US regulatory environment. I imagine Mazda were driven by the same fashions / regulations as everyone else.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC) (The photographer...)

Further thoughts: Thinking it through, I cannot be sure that I would have looked at the badge! I might simply have assumed that (as in England) the coupe version (as opposed to the four door sedan version) of this car was ONLY available with the rotary engine - rather as NSU did with the Spyder bodied version of their (otherwise mechanically dull) coupe.

But it did and does sometimes happen that the Belgian and Dutch markets get (got) a wider range of models than the British. So IF a coupe version with a reciprocating motor of the car was offered in Belgium, then I guess this could be that. BUT I've no reason to believe that a reciprocating motor was ever offered in the coupe version in any market. Then again, I wasn't living in Japan nor the US in the 1970s. And I'm not a particular Mazda specialist! Does anyone reading this know more?

As for the black bonnet / hood, I think even in the mid 1970s this car must have been fairly old, so there is every chance that a younger owner had personalized the color scheme a little. Seems to happen quite a bit in Belgium....

I guess I'll google round to see if I can find any evidence of the car having been sold without the rotary engine anywhere like .. Belgium!

Regards Charles01 (talk) 16:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Charles! My above remark was made lest anyone might think that the black h/b was a feature of this model...you will remember the matte black hood fad of the early 70s. -- As for the headlight question, you´re probably right that round vs. square is a matter of US vs other markets, although it might be that the units were model specific - I just don´t know, but will do some further research on that. -- I do have a 1973 Mazda 1000/1300 brochure somewhere around (retrieved in Luzern in 1982 at a dealer!) and seem to remember that the Coupé could be had with the piston engines. The 1000/1300 was never sold here in Germany, let alone the R100. Regards and i miei più distinti saluti, Michael --328cia (talk) 15:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The car pictured is definitely not a R100. It is a 1300 Deluxe Coupe. Grille - This is not the American round-headlight grille, it is from a 1300. Deluxe badge on the rear quarters. 1300 Bonnet. 1300 Bumper bar. 1300 Hubcaps.

This is an R100: http://media.mazda.ch/dossiers/Wankel/images/hi-res/r100-coupe.jpg

Cheers - 0x0000ff (talk) 01:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been a couple of weeks, it would be good if we could change the picture over to something more accurate. Car pictured is NOT an R100 as described previously. I don't have upload rights and am unsure of the legality of picture previously linked.....

0x0000ff (talk) 04:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not think you need any special rights to upload an image. You just need to make sure that you are not infringing someone else's copyright when you do so. If you have - or can produce - a reasonable picture of an R100 in respect of which you are certain that it is an R100, then as far as I'm concerned you should upload it! I don't. Frankly, I'm not myself now convinced either way about the identity of the one currently included even though I took the picture myself and always had thought it was of an R100. It's evident that the badge shape and grill arrangement are different on the Belgian market car from the ones on the (I think) Japanese market advertising shot, but whether that is because they are different models, or finished for different markets, or adjusted for different model years ... or some combination thereof, I do not have the detailed knowledge to assess.

There must be one or two R100s retained in museums or some such which could be photographed. Until that is done, if you are sure of what the Belgian car is, I suppose you could insert a caption along the lines "The R100 shared its bodywork with the 1000 coupe depicted here, but featured different grill treatment". Only don't copy my suggestion: write a caption that you believe to be correct based on your own sources.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 05:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)