MotorWeek | Retro Review: '84 Rotus 7

Yeah, you read it right. Sweet Toyota engine!

[pbfloyd]

HORIE SHEIT!! THAT NAME IS OFFENSIVE!!!

[TheFilthyGoTDirt]

My Father had a Dutton & I remember being excited seeing a car like my Dads on TV when I first saw this as kid.

[ftffighter]

That engine and front suspension are beautiful.

[jamesengland]

35 years later, this design is still going strong

[johncummins]

The Rotus was sketched out on a Napkin in a Diner in Frederick Maryland 1976 just down the road from Chris Custer's Toyota dealership. The upper ball joints were actually outer tie rod ends from a 3500 Chevrolet one ton truck. The spindles came from a Toyota Corona MK2. I drove the first car in a tire test sponsored by BF Goodrich at he tire industry test center in Ohio. The goal was to achieve "1G" in cornering which I achieved on the second run. The run was on a counter clockwise course and I reached 1.2G. I was prevented form doing it clockwise due to the carburetor's floats bouncing causing a misfire. Had we had fuel injection on the Japanese spec 2 litre Toyota Twin Cam we would probably have done it in both directions. We were supposed to do the test on Monday but it rained and Wednesday was the first dry day we had.

[voodoowhammy]

The Mitsubishi Starion was supposedly a mispronunciation of "Stallion" by the Japanese... this car was supposed to be named in the same equine based line as the Colt.

[NakedUndone]

6.7 s to 60 seems pretty slow for something with such a high power-to-weight ratio...

[gabethebaeb_]

Since when did a car company Rotus existed? lol

[gamagoat]

Pretty sweet, but I'd be afraid to use it anywhere but SoCal where you know there's going to be zero chance of rain for 6-month stretches.

[ericheydenreich]

Neat car, but man does it look uncomfortable! Thanks for sharing.

[terranceparker]

Shouldn't it be Totus 7 since it has a Toyota engine😕

[VieVentar]

Wow, that name has NOT aged well.

I wonder how many of them are left now?

[Doobie]

very fast car by mid 80's standards, still a very fast car by today's standards, wasn't 1984 the beginning of the end of the Malaise era automobiles?

[Peter-kyhl]

I didn’t think a car could be racist, but here we are lol

[scdevon]

Affluent? Looks like those shoddy fiberglass kit cars from the 70's.

[gamagoat]

Pretty sweet, but I'd be afraid to use it anywhere but SoCal where you know there's going to be zero chance of rain for 6-month stretches.