[spectre6000]

I'm in the market for something fun and sporty. I've got an extensive history with fun and interesting cars, and one of my all time favorite anything-car-relateds is a rotary engine. I love the way it just wants to pull to the moon, the sound of one starting up, even just the subtle pulsations of cruising around town at low speeds/rpm. They're glorious. I need a back seat that can handle child seats, and I need to be able to keep it reliable (meaning I can reliably get parts). I've been after an S2 RX8 GT manual. My daughter has health issues making covid a very serious concern, so I'm unable to fly or stay in a hotel. As a result, I've had to put my distance limit at 250 miles (I live in the mountains above Denver), which would be a very long day out and back with a car inspection/purchase in the middle. In more than six months' worth of looking, not a single example at any price or condition has come up for sale. Not only is that discouraging from the perspective of just finding one at all, but S2s are nowhere near as common as S1s, and they have lots of parts that don't interchange. This gives me serious pause in terms of being able to keep the thing on the road long term.

So I've started considering other options. On paper, the Toybaru twins appear to be the RX8's spiritual successor. Very very similar across a dozen metrics. The lack of the suicide doors makes accessing the back seat to get my daughter in a child seat a little more difficult, but probably not world endingly so (this is the second most significant detractor from what I can tell on paper). Price of entry is at least double the RX8, but money isn't really that much of a concern for this purchase (though a new BRZ is the max that I'm willing to spend). Flat fours are also pretty great engines. The new Toybarus share an engine with some SUV, and the SUV is turbocharged from the factory, so I suspect the power deficiency concerns of the first generation will disappear in a hurry. Reliability, parts availability, and even just raw numbers on the road for scavenging parts way down the road put the vote in the Toybaru's corner all day long. Never mind Toyota/Subaru's overall track record for reliability across the board.

But I love rotary engines... The RX8 is at most half the price, better rear seat access, and rotary. Did I mention rotary?

I know the bias here will lean hard in the Toybaru direction, but talk me into/out of whichever you way feel the stronger case can be made. Unless you also have extensive rotary experience, please don't with the "apex seals" or "oil consumption" or whatever comments.