Besides the styling, the engineering team headed by Zora Arkus-Duntov succeeded in transforming Corvette into a world-class sports car which could park proudly beside Jaguar and Porsche. While we regard its rigid chassis, independent rear suspensions and optional disc brakes were just common by European standard, its huge V8s and rocket acceleration must be world-beating.

The original '63 Sting Ray was installed with a 327 cubic inches so-called "Small Block" V8 (small according to American standard) capable of 340 hp. Then "Big Block" versions appeared in 1965, including the famous 427 version (7 litres) with an astonishing output of 425 hp, thanks to the 11.0:1 compression ratio and many NASCAR racing technology used. Loud, rough and thirsty it might be, but that was the ultimate American muscle car. People loved its tyre-smoking launch and wild accelerating speed, though I doubt its real world handling ability. It didn’t eat bends and twisty roads as fluent as European sports cars.

Since then, emission regulations and energy crisis gradually cut the capacity and power so that its successors never recovered such performance. Sitting on the peak of the American muscle car era, Corvette Sting Ray still brings back the memory of the "Good Old Days" to the American.

Born as a pony car, the Firebird got bigger and bigger engines every year until became the fearsome Trans Am version. Powered by a 6.6-litre V8, output 345 hp, the second generation Trans Am was one of the fastest muscle cars then, and still outpower today's Firebird. There were several muscle cars being as powerful as it, such as the Mustang Boss series, Mustang Mach 1, Pontiac GTO, Dodge Charger etc, but none of them had the appearance to match. The Trans Am looked very different from Corvette Sting Ray, but it was equally fascinating. Handsome is not the best word to describe it, fearsome is more appropriate. Yes, its fearsome appearance always remind us the horrible muscle car era.

It is difficult to imagine a small company like this could make so many technical innovations. Its 4WD was developed by FF development (which gave its name) and was already tested in a Cooper formula one racing car. It employed a revolutionary viscous-coupling different lock so to provide limited slip function. In normal condition, 63 percent torque was transferred to the rear axle so to provide sports car character. When journalists from Motor and Autocar magazines test drove it, they were all amazed by its superior traction that was never experienced before. Especially in wet or snow conditions, Autocar described it as "the safest high performance car yet built".

The ABS was not as good as expected, simply because the Dunlop system was a purely mechanical design, unlike the computerised ABS that appeared in the 80s. In those pre-chip age, braking was applied for at most 2-3 times per second, compare with today's 15-20 times per second.

Jensen FF was built alongside its regular version, Interceptor, which had neither 4WD nor ABS. They were finished in luxurious trimming and intended to be a "fast, safe and comfortable Grand Tourer". Since the FF was too costly to build, it died in 1971 with a total of 320 cars made. After 1971, 4WD road cars disappeared in the world for a decade until Audi made its Quattro into mass production. Surprising, Audi bought a Jensen FF for study when developing Quattro, and today's most 4WD cars still followed FF's mechanism. One can see how advanced the FF was.

Rotary engine was invented by German Dr. Felix Wankel decades ago so that it is also called "Wankel engine". Unlike conventional piston engines, it uses triangular rotors instead of pistons to be the device for transforming heat energy from combusted gas to kinetic energy driving the drive shaft. Major advantages are smoothness, lightness and compactness, but fail to match piston engines in terms of durability and fuel consumption. NSU produced the first Wankel car with the service of Dr. Wankel, but the first (and only) successful application was Mazda RX-7, which appeared in 1978.

The first RX-7 was a front-engined rear-wheel drive pure sports car. Basically it was a 2-seater but a pair of small seats were also available in 2+2 version. It aimed to compete with Nissan 280ZX, Toyota Supra and Porsche 924, primarily destined in the United States. Compare with these rivals, it was less powerful - the 12A (1.2 litres capacity) twin-rotor Wankel was capable of 100 hp and 105 lbft. But it rotated incredibly smooth from mid to high rpm. Besides, Wankel engine benefited the lightweight as well as the wind-cheating low bonnet, thus performance was impressive - 120 mph, 0-60 took 8.9 sec.

Handling was quite good, because the compact engine was positioned completely behind the front axle (a la "front mid-engined"), thus offered perfect balance. Nevertheless, steering lacked precision and the rear lift created instability in high speed, thus made it less driver-bias than Porsche 924. However, the RX-7 was faster, smoother, a lot cheaper and, arguably, looked prettier. US sales proved it was a great success - around 50,000 units were sold there annually between 1979 and 1985, without sign of decline before the second generation appeared.

Compare with earlier rotary cars, RX-7 succeeded in solving the durability problem occurred in the rotor tip sealing - made of crystalised cast iron by means of electron beam, which is more resistant to wear, thus avoid the leakage problem which troubled NSU's Ro80. Fuel consumption was also improved, partly because of the lightweight and partly because of the better sealing. However, it still burnt considerably more fuel than conventional engines.

Evolution
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• In 1983, the domestic version gained a turbocharger, thus power was up to 165 hp (JIS). No export.
• In 1984, bigger 13B engine (with 654 c.c. each chamber instead of 573 c.c.) improved the output to 135 hp and 133 lbft, accompanied with 205 R14 tyres instead of the original 185 R13.

In 1989, the generation 2 received major update. Variable-length intake manifold improved the normally aspirated version to 160 hp and 140 lbft. Turbocharged version gained a twin-scroll turbine, which separated the exhaust gas from different rotors thus eliminated back pressure interference. As a result, output jumped to 200 hp and 195 lbft. The RX-7 turbo became a 150 mph sports car.

Nevertheless, the second generation sold worse than the first generation. US sales number dropped gradually year by year, from 56,243 units in 1986 to 6,986 units in 1991. Even though the third generation launched, sales continued to decline. Some people explained that by its excessive fuel consumption, but tough competition seemed to be the more believable reason - 300ZX, Supra, 944, Starion were all strong rivals. Worst of all, piston engines were improved a lot during the past decade in terms of smoothness, and further enhanced the advantage of fuel consumption over rotary engines. Theoretically, Wankel engine has higher energy efficiency. However, after 20 years, the best Wankel engine improved little in efficiency, it still burnt considerably more fuel than equivalent piston engines. Moreover, the gap is still enlarging. No wonder Mazda has stopped development of RX-7. The fourth generation may never come.

For the first time, the rotary engine employed twin-turbo. They were arranged to work sequentially, ie., one of the turbines started working at around 2000rpm and another joined at around 5000rpm. As a result, low-end response was improved. The RX-7 could therefore shortened 0-60mph acceleration to 6 seconds.

Although some people disliked its organic styling, the car went and handled brilliantly, thus was described as almost as good to drive as the contemporary Honda NSX. However, the burst of global sports car market in the mid-90s killed many of its rivals - Porsche 968, Nissan 300ZX, Mitsubishi GTO / 3000GT, Toyota Supra etc. - and let the RX-7 struggling for survival. Sales in overseas market discontinued in around 96 and 97, with the exception of Australia.

Thereafter, the car kept updating in the domestic market. There were no big changes, but Mazda gradually increased power, strengthened brakes, suspensions and improved aerodynamics. The engine was upgraded to 265hp first and eventually reached the domestic upper limit of 280hp in the Type RS, which was the last major update. Type RS was for hardcore enthusiasts. It deleted sound deadening and others to reduce weight. It also employed higher specification dampers, wider tyres, bigger wheels and stiffer suspension setup. 0-60mph was improved to 5.1 sec.

However, RX-7 finally died on August 1, 2002, when the tighter emission regulation came into force in Japan. On the same day, the mighty Nissan Skyline GT-R and Silvia also died. In 2003, the rotary engine came alive again in the RX-8 four-seater, but RX-7 lovers will never be satisfied with its soft-edge tuning and lower performance level. Obviously, a fourth generation RX-7 is the dream of many people.