The Luce Saloon Is The Turbo Rotary Mazda You've Never Heard Of

As the sole manufacturer to have truly persisted with rotary engines, Mazda has a plethora of Wankel-powered gems in its back catalogue. There are the obvious ones like the RX-7s and the RX-8s, the beautiful oddities like the Cosmos, and the lesser-known cars like the Luce.

The HC generation of the latter got a variety of V6 and inline-four engine options, and yes, a twin-rotor 13B. The rotary unit wasn’t a particularly common choice, and the US-market ‘929’ version of the car couldn’t be specced with it at all.

Someone in the US sought to rectify this grave injustice by importing a right-hand drive JDM Luce in 2018. As it’s the ‘Limited’ trimmed model, you’re missing out on all the mod cons fitted to the Grand Royal, which included a drinks cooler. You do however still get electronically controlled suspension that is said to be fully functional on this particular example.

Our classifieds pick also has some fantastically Burgandy and electronically-adjustable cloth seats, plus a working (and oh-so 80s) partially digital instrument cluster. Included in the sale is all of the original Japanese manuals, the import paperwork and a Washington title.

The 1.3-litre engine is the 13B-DEI shared with the second-generation RX-7. It’s turbocharged, helping it develop a healthy 185bhp which is sent to the rear wheels via a four-speed automatic gearbox. The should be in fine fettle thanks to a refresh of all the fluids last year, and at the same time, the air conditioning was serviced.

The Noble White paintwork looks to be in great condition, and the advert on Bring a Trailer even goes as far as including 21 images of paint meter readings to prove this. The grey lower cladding looks solid, too.

Currently located in Neptune, New Jersey, it has a mere 70,000 kilometres (around 43,000) on the clock. The current owner, its sole US keeper thus far, is responsible for only around 1500 of those kilometres.

The auction had only just started at the time of writing, with the bidding at $200. Predicting how high the price will go over the next seven days is easier said than done, giving how infrequently these cars come up for sale. There’s another for sale on eBay for $11,998, but it’s not rotary-powered.

How much would you be willing to bid for this classy rotary Mazda?