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> On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Taylor A wrote:
> > Felix wrote:
> > >Jose C wrote:
> > >> Hmmm, the Rx in the name Rx-7 means Rotary eXperimental.
> > >No it doesn't. It means eXport. It goes all the way back to the first rotary cars officially
> > >eXported, when home market models were renamed for eXport markets. The RX-7 was the
> > >***7TH*** production rotary vehicle eXported by Mazda.
> > For once, I think you're mistaken Felix - I've got copies of the
> > orriginal C&D magazine writeups of the "new" 79 rx7.... both of them
> > confirm the "X" for experimental.... I believe the Yamaguchi book supports
> > this also (it's been a while since I read it).

Incessant repeating of a myth or falsehood doesn't convert it to reality
or truth. I just reread Don Sherman's reports in the May and September
1978 issues of "Car & Driver" without finding any reference to
etymology. Likewise absent was the subject in John Dinkel's and John
Lamm's articles in the May and August 1978 issues of "Road & Track". A
large part of the information in the four articles was taken from a
publication I have before me, "Product Information: Mazda RX-7", 43
pages, printed by Mazda April 1978, which also omits a discussion of the
etymology of RX-7.

Regardless, to quote Don Sherman from the May 1978 issue, "After eight
years of yeoman service pulling around frumpy sedans and mini pickup
trucks, Felix Wankel's wondermotor has earned a special reward [...]",
and hardly qualifies as anything remotely resembling experimental, with
930,000 rotary engines having been produced up until the introduction of
the RX-7.

All of Mazda's RX- show/experimental rotary cars, before and since, had
names of multiple numerical digits.

> Makes sense to me - they call them Rx7s in Japan, too, and they're
> domestics over here, not eXports :)

Who said anything about sales being made eXclusively in eXport markets.
Just because earlier RX- models were so called only for export obviously
didn't prevent Mazda from adopting such a moniker for a domestic model.
The RX-7 was unquestionably the seventh Mazda rotary model officially
produced in volume for eXport.

http://www.gate.net/~mrmazda/cfaq.html#OTHERPROD
Mazda Rotary models eXported and model year first sold in the US were:

1 1970 R-100 (Japanese Familia)
2 1971 RX-2 (Japanese Capella)
3 1972 RX-3 (Japanese Savanna)
4 1974 RX-4 (Japanese Luce)
5 1974 REPU (Rotary Engine PickUp, sold only in the US market)
6 1976 Cosmo (RX-5 in some markets)
7 1979 RX-7

Note that the RX-7 is the seventh on this comprehensive list of seven.

Clearly, res ipsa loquitur, absent *official* Mazda documentation
otherwise.

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