1985 Mazda Cosmo series HB

Written by: C Blackmore.
My rotary history is incredibly short - I jumped in this Cosmo, and 3 hours later I had finished the journey in my first ever Rotary. But to be entirely honest I was a Rotary obsessed child. I loved the sound, the smell, the sight - I loved drawing Rotary nuts on my school books. The only issue was I couldn’t drive back then.

By the time I got my driving license, the excitement for Rotary powered stuff had slightly dissipated but I’ve always appreciated them. Back then it was still possible to buy a Rotary hack for less than $5000 NZD. In this day and age the same vehicle would be 6x as much.

I first met Tony through the internet, he had recently moved cities and we ended up living in the same neighbourhood. It looked like the weather was nice one weekend so I messaged him and organised a bit of a drive. First impressions about the Cosmo were all about it’s shape. Long, square and low. It was an automatic 13B non turbo, meaning acceleration existed but was definitely lacking.

The inside was a sight to behold, it was designed in it’s day and age for luxury. The dash board has a zillion different buttons and it even had an option for adjustable ride comfort, which would have been great to play with but Tony had recently installed some coil over suspension to get this machine even lower to the ground.

Overall it was likely the perfect introduction to Rotary powered vehicles. Now I can’t wait to check out some more!