Mazda Rotary Engine Pickup

A Rotary Engine Pickup, photo taken by Wikipedia user "detectandpreserve".

In the 1970s, Mazda had a thing for rotary engines. While in more recent years rotary engines have been confined to RX sports cars or discontinued altogether, Mazda once offered a full lineup of rotary powered vehicles. Compacts, wagons, midsize sedans, sports sedans, sports cars, and even luxury cars got Wankel rotaries dropped into their engine compartments. In the US, many of these models had "RX" in their name, such as the RX-2, RX-3, RX-4 and RX-5. 

Like most Japanese manufacturers, Mazda built a little truck, known as the B-Series. In 1974, the second generation B-Series was in production, having launched in 1965. The Rotary Engine Pickup was a version of this truck built with a 1.3 liter, two rotor engine, the 13B, which also powered many other rotary Mazdas of the time. Oddly for Mazda, it was only sold in the United States and Canada Road and Track was impressed by the truck, praising its "smooth, quiet power" and "nice" interior. Unfortunately, only 3,000 units were sold, and the truck was discontinued in 1977 when the B-Series was redesigned. Today, the trucks are highly sought after by enthusiasts.

A piston engined version of the truck was available as the B1600, and Ford also sold a version as the Courier.