Just a few comments. On the RX8, if you like it, fine, if not, fine.

I have RX7's and Mustangs. Ford does not own a controling interest in Mazda. They are large shareholders, but far from a controling interest. At one point they owned 25% of Mazda, but that has fluctuated up and down over the years. Interestingly enough Mazda also owns a large share of Ford stock. When it gets down to who own's who??? I am not sure what the true answer is. But it is fair to say they share much of their engineering and production processes. Many patents owned by Ford are being used at Mazda and vice-versa. Interestingly enough, GM funded much of the early rotary development, sold the licenses to AMC which basically went bankrupt before they could put them to use, and somehow it ended up with Mazda.

The AMC pacer was designed around the AMC rotary. They ran out of money and replaced the rotary with an existing inline 6 cylinder. Think about the basic shape of the two engines. Rotary is about 2 feet long and 2 feet tall allowing a low and short (front to rear) hood. The 6 cylinder is tall and long. One of the many reasons that car and the Edsel rival each other as the biggest automotive failures of all time.