Hiroshima Express

21 January, 2025

One of the rarest Mazdas, and amongst one of the rarest production cars in the World, a 1967 Series 1, Cosmo made its public debut at the 2025 Cromwell Classic and Hot Rod Car Show on Saturday, January 18 this year.

Restoration journey
After a challenging 5-year restoration, its proud Cromwell owner, Mike Elford celebrated its appearance along with Dunedin specialist, Mazda rotary engine builder, Cory Wilson who trallered the car through to the show.
“There are a number of details still to attend to and fine-tune the engine and then it will at last be finished. I’m very pleased with the result,” Cory said. 
Mike is extremely pleased with the end now in sight of what has been a very challenging project. The tiny jewel of Japanese motoring engenuity attracted many on-lookers at the show as it sat glistening in the sun on an appropriately brilliant Central Otago summer’s day.|
Speculation as to its origin and history ranging from “A Japanese import” to “Must have just been restored in States” was entertaining to overhear with few realising the beautifully prepared car was a product of home-grown skills.
“I spent countless hours online searching  for parts for this car from all over the World. It has been a very hard job gathering all the bits and there are still a few parts to add to complete the detail bits of the car,” Mike said.
He had high praise for the quality of restoration work carried out by Cromwell car restorer, Michael Stewart and Cory who rebuilt the now very rare 10A rotary engine.
“It was great to be able to drive it off the trailer and into the show under its own power. I’m very pleased with the way it has come together,” Cory said.
This is one rare car
With such a small production run in its lifetime, you can’t hop down to your Repco parts agency for bits and in particular, a complete gasket set was hand-made for the 10A rotary by a local expert
Hand-built by Mazda from 1967 until 1972, at a rate of one car per day, just 1,176 Cosmos were produced consisting of 343 Series I cars and 833 Series II cars, with a number of cars going to the Japanese Police for highway patrol duties while some were raced. 
Mazda specialists will observe that this Series I example was built close to model changeover resulting in the inclusion of some Series II parts. It was very much a show-piece of Mazda technology and styling, setting high engineering standards and performance for sports cars worldwide, and introducing the Wankel rotary engine. It’s hard to realise that was now 55 years ago and there is little doubt that the brilliant concept has not yet died. With advances in alternative fuels, we may see a hydrogen comeback for the little screamers from Hiroshima.
New Zealand Classic Car magazine will have a full feature on the little car and its restorers in an upcoming issue.
 

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup