Market Find: A 1970 Mazda Cosmo Sport With Its Original 10A Rotary, Listed by JDM Legends
Only 1,176 Cosmo Sports were ever built, and this Series II car — restored in Japan and now titled in Utah — still has the twin-rotor engine it left the factory with. It's listed at $125,000.
Every rotary Mazda built since 1967 — every RX-7, every RX-8, the FD's twin-turbo 13B, the works Le Mans-winning 787B — traces back to one car. This is that car, or as close as most enthusiasts will ever get to seeing one in person: a 1970 Cosmo Sport Series II, currently listed by California-based dealer JDM Legends at $125,000.
Mazda built the Cosmo in two runs: 343 first-generation L10A cars, then 833 Series II L10B cars like this one, for a total of 1,176 before production ended — a number small enough that surviving examples are genuinely rare regardless of condition. The Series II, introduced in mid-1968, is the more usable of the two: a stronger version of Mazda's 10A twin-rotor engine good for 128 hp, a 5-speed manual in place of the original 4-speed, power brakes, and 15-inch wheels on a slightly widened chassis.
What makes this particular car notable is what it doesn't have: a replacement engine. According to JDM Legends, the car retains its original 10A rotary, restored in Japan in the mid-2000s before being sourced and inspected by the dealer and brought to the US, where it now carries a Utah title. Beyond a Nardi steering wheel, the listing describes the car as remarkably original — down to the houndstooth-and-vinyl interior and the factory gauge cluster, both still in place. The dealer's own comparison points to just how uncommon that is: even Jay Leno's well-documented Cosmo, they note, runs a later engine rather than the original 10A.
Values for good Cosmo Sports have moved a long way from where they sat even a decade ago — JDM Legends points to a recent auction sale at $260,000 as a data point for where the top of the market now sits, though that figure reflects a single result rather than an established price floor. At $125,000, this car is positioned well under that ceiling, for a genuinely rare, largely original example of the car that convinced Mazda to spend the next fifty-plus years building rotary engines nobody asked for and everybody, eventually, fell in love with.
Market Find: An AAR Eagle Mk I With a Gurney-Weslake V-12 — Chassis 103, and the Race It Didn't Win
RM Sotheby's has the third of four Eagle Formula 1 cars in its Sealed September sale at a $7–9 million estimate. It is not the car that won at Spa. Understanding why that matters is most of the story.
Market Find: A 190E Evolution II That Spent 36 Years in Japan — #448 of the 502 Mercedes Had to Build
Mercedes built exactly enough Evolution IIs to go touring car racing, and this one was delivered new in Japan and stayed there until it was exported this year. Bidding on Bring a Trailer sat at $201,000 with a week left to run.
Market Find: The Last Manual V12 Lamborghini Heads to Sealed Bidding
A one-off, gated-manual Murciélago LP 670-4 SV finished in a color no other example wears is up for sealed bidding at RM Sotheby's, with the closest thing to a factory guarantee that no more like it are coming.