Development of Lighter-Weight, Higher-Stiffness Body for New RX-7

To realize high levels of handling, driving performance, and NVH characteristics for a sports car, it is important to develop a lightweight and high-stiffness vehicle body. For the new RX-7, weight saving and higher stiffness were pursued as top priorities from the very first stage of the program. We were able to achieve 20% higher bending stiffness and 15% higher torsional stiffness with vehicle weight reduced by 30 kg, compared with the former model.

The development of the lightweight, high-stiffness body for the new RX-7 is discussed under three subjects:

1. 1.
   Contributions of vehicle components to vehicle stiffness
2. 2.
   Effective procedure for developing vehicle high stiffness and lightweight construction with emphasis on calculation analysis
3. 3.
   New RX-7's body structure and accomplishment