This article titled "Rising Sons" was published in the March UK magazine "Car". The story was writen by Mike Duff. Quoting him he said that "these are two brilliant cars, differently brilliant but brilliant nevertheless". The negative comments were that "The 350Z has what feels like massive grip and performance after the RELATIVELY dainty, rolly RX-8". I am surprised that most of the testing of the RX-8 was done on the Laguna Seca Circuit. Having a road car tested on a race track is a fairly pointless exercise as Mike Duff points out "Why hasn't Mazda allowed it's car to be tested properly by journalists on real life road situations". I have read all the reports I can on the RX-8 however I'm still not satisfied whether this car will have the low and mid-range torque to really do justice to be called a true sports car. "I think this car is more like a four door, four seat hatchback/coupe crossover". As Mike Duff says
" Kinematics is a brutally honest game as Nissan quickly demonstrates". "Whatever the RX-8 may be it's not a hardcore driving device". He compares the RX-8 as being the difference between the 330i BMW coupe and a Porsche Boxster. The RX-8 being the BMW and the 350Z being the Porsche Boxster. Maybe Mazda should've added a bit more salt and pepper to the RX-8. Subject to the testdrive of the RX-8 it may be worthwhile waiting for the Mazda Speed RX-8, hopefully coming in the near future. I cannot understand why Mazda didn't try to match the power output of the 350Z, being 206 KW.

 

I think the general consensus on the forums is that, it DOESN'T have low end torque... well, actually, the Torque is flat for the entire RPM range, it is just Low for a car of this size.. keep in mind though, it has a 9000RPM red-line, and has no problem getting up to RPM. remember, Power is proportional to Torque * RPM, therefore, a lower torque at a higher RPM still means a lot of fun.. :-) If you REALLY want low-end torque, you're probably gonna need to get a Boinger car... or supercharge the rotary... If you really want the RX-8 to drive like asports car, you're going to have to keep the Rev's high.