This particular animal is a Mazda R100 all the way from Vancouver, Canada. Rod from Hot Rod Resto’s built the car in his shop from the ground up, with the key centrepiece of the build being the 20B rotary engine sporting a big single turbo. Rod found the car 11 years ago, and before the build started the car was actually partly used a doner car for one of Rob’s mates R100’s, donating the firewall and the belly before Rod began cutting the it up to get it ready for time attack duties.The car needed to be cut anyway to fit the T56 ‘box, the fit is so tight inside that the trans is left exposed with no tunnel between it and the driver!

The body now sits on a full chromoly chassis with billet suspension all round that was built in house at Rod’s shop. The custom rear wheels are so big that two – yes, TWO – tyres are used per wheel to give the car the massive footprint on the road while still keeping rotating mass and diameter down. The wheels have their own story all together. They’re custom made for the car and have a Wilwood wide-five bolt pattern with full floating hubs, giving Rod the peace of mind that they’ll take any punishment that comes their way on the track.

The car needs all of those tyres underneath it as the 20B is chucking out 700 horses to the rears on 18psi with the help of E85, courtesy of ForceFed Performance who are next door to Rob’s rod shop.

The car hasn’t made it to the track just yet, Rod plans to take it for its first outing at Area 27 Motorsports Park in Canada, a track only recently completed that’s designed by racing drivers to use the natural terrain of the area.

Rod doesn’t get stressed that Rotaries are often joked about in the car world, with the term ‘apex seals’ being a common occurrence among car people when the subject of dorito’s is bought up.

“You should give a little respect when a little rotary car pulls up next to you, because odds are it’s going to make you look dumb,“ he said.