Impish and eager, the new Mazda RX-8 is a sports car that majors in boyish charm. If it had hair, it would be tousled. It is so eager to please that it has four doors, which, according to my maths, is exactly twice the usual complement on a low-slung coupe, and two more than you would expect from a car that has only two external door handles. It's a piece of work altogether.
To be honest, I hadn't noticed the deviously camouflaged rear doors until a small child I was driving around with threw one of them open. Fortunately, we were stationary on a driveway, rather than throttling it up the A3, and, in fact, safety fans may care to learn that you can't open the rear doors of a Mazda RX-8, whichever main road you are on, without first opening the front doors anyway.
Nevertheless, it was quite a shock - not least because the child in question has a fairly long and distinguished history of re-engineering car interiors. He once tore the fold-down tray table out of a brand new Citroën Picasso within 14 seconds of climbing on board. A mint-condition seven-seater Chrysler Grand Voyager was, at best, a three-seater by the time he had finished with it. So in this case, seeing with some consternation a third flap open at the back of what I had taken to be a two-door sports car, my natural first assumption was that he had managed to kick a hole in the Mazda's side-panel.
But no. He had merely activated one of the Mazda's cunning rear exits by pulling the simple release-lever mounted on its leading edge. Hinged at the rear of the car, these doors fold back in a thrilling, if slightly 1970s manner, to allow unprecedented ease of access to the two rear seats. Anyone who has ever climbed into the back of a sports car, and later struggled to recover the blood-flow to their lower limbs, will appreciate this innovation for the work of public-spirited genius that it is.
Ordinarily the rear of a coupe, though patently equipped with chair-shaped objects, offers only a simulation in miniature or animated version of a passenger compartment, rather than the full-scale, properly operational thing. You squeeze past the tilted driver's seat on the way in, then adopt a yogic position that involves breathing from the sternum and inserting your shoes in your ears. All the while, you are aware that you may have to remain this way for the rest of your life, unless at the end of your journey someone rips the roof off.
The RX-8, with its secret openings, says farewell to crushed-limbed coupe passenger misery. Getting in to the back of a coupe has never been simpler. That's not to say that it's as easy as getting in to the front. The back of the RX-8 is still a tight fit. But at least it's an achievable one. If an average-sized adult can persuade the driver to push his seat forward and drive with his nose squished against the windscreen, then he or she might just be able to enjoy what is conventionally known as leg-room.
More than likely, though, the driver will want to sit back in his or her snug racing seat, arrange his or her feet comfortably on the drilled alloy pedals and have fun. Around you is a calm, uncomplicated spread of meters and dials, both analogue (the rev counter) and digital (the speedo) and a small plot of squeaky leather. Ahead of you lies a swooping bonnet; behind you, a punchy rear end. And beside you sits the handbrake, which is for some reason modelled to represent a giant coathanger, but never mind.
The RX-8 is powered by that timeless schoolboy joke, a Wankel rotary engine: the old valve- and crankshaft-free format for which only Mazda among modern car manufacturers has retained a passionate fondness. (The company claims a Wankel heritage dating back to 1967.) An interesting biographical detail about Felix Wankel, the German inventor who died in 1988: he had neither an engineering degree nor a driving licence. Remarkable when you think about it. That said, if you drive the super-smooth new derivative of his engine in the Mazda RX-8 at the speed it so clearly wants to go, it won't be long before you don't have a driving license either.
Hooked up, in the 192ps version, to a short-shift, five-speed gearbox, and with the kind of subtly weighted power-steering that makes you feel you are sharing the work with the car, rather than handing over the job completely, the RX-8 specialises in untroubled, quiet bursts of power. If your taste is for a bit more trouble, you might try the "performance-oriented" 231ps version, which comes with a six-speed gearbox and an optional crash helmet.
Yet, for all its elements of dash and daring, the RX-8 is, like the hugely popular Mazda roadster the MX5, more about serenity and unfrightening pleasure than about gravel-busting growl and bite. It handles so easily that it appears to be driving in a slot, which should mean that the car appeals beyond a narrow audience of speed freaks and rubber cultists. It is a saloon among coupes and a four-door in disguise. Get into it, through any of the available entrances.
