The 3805 Series

Mazda Four Rotor Engine

This 4 rotor motor was one of the earliest prototypes Mazda was developing back in 1963. It was similar to some of the other rotary engine families at that time, the information learned on this engine would be transferred into the later 10A rotary engines. But the template for the 3805 came from the older L8A motor (0353), they also had a three rotor experiment off the L8A platform called the (0804).

The engine was used only in the R16A, a sports concept car at the time. As stated by the R16A, it was said to have 400 cc displacements per rotor, resulting in a total of 1600 cc with all four rotors. They estimated the engine produced around 160hp @ 7000 rpm which was an incredibly high horse power motor in the mid 1960s. Unfortunately there were no tests to prove this result.