2004 Mazda Rx-8 Base Coupe 4-door 1.3l on 2040-cars

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Edmunds ranks the best used cars for 2013

When people ask us what car we would recommend for them, it's usually not easy to answer. To make a useful recommendation we must consider which of the numerous vehicle segments fits their needs best, and then choose one of the many vehicles offered in each segment. For some people, new cars don't meet their expectations of value, because they lose so much of it the moment they are purchased and driven off the dealer lot. For them, there's always the used-car market, where great deals can be found, but cars' histories of reliability and maintenance records - and perhaps that Certified Pre-Owned warranty - become ever-important factors playing into purchase choice.
To help out, Edmunds has done us the favor of assembling a list of the best used vehicles money can buy, covering model years 2006-2011, according to what it considers the most important criteria when shopping for used autos: reliability, safety, value and availability. That means unreliable, unsafe, super-expensive or limited-edition models don't appear on the list, but instead cars from each segment that are more likely to satisfy the general population.
There are some real goodies on the list, including but not limited to vehicles such as the capable Honda Fit, the cultish Honda Accord coupe (which can be had with a 240-horsepower V6 and a six-speed manual transmission some years), and the powerful Chevrolet Corvette. While Edmunds' choice of the Volvo C70 for best used convertible baffled us at first (not that it's a bad car), it redeemed itself by stating that the Mazda MX-5 still is an unofficial top choice if you don't require more than two seats.

Oliver Jarvis in a Mazda takes pole in star-studded Rolex 24 at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Oliver Jarvis broke a 26-year-old record at Daytona International Speedway in putting the Mazda DPi from Team Joest on the pole for the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Jarvis went to the top of the scoring chart early in Thursday's qualifying session with a lap at 1 minute, 33.685 seconds. It broke the mark by two-tenths of a second set by P.J. Jones in 1993 in a GTP-class Toyota. The Englishman spoiled a strong run by Team Penske, which qualified second and third for the twice-round-the-clock endurance race that begins Saturday. Ricky Taylor earned the second spot in Penske's Acura ARX-05, while teammate Juan Pablo Montoya was third in his first time qualifying the sports car for the organization. Team Joest wound up first and fourth on the starting grid with Jonathan Bomarito putting its second car on the second row. Felipe Nasr had the fastest Cadillac DPi-V.R in fifth for Action Express Racing. Nasr is the reigning IMSA champion and led the way for four more Cadillacs in qualifying. Jordan Taylor was sixth for Wayne Taylor Racing, ahead of Juncos Racing's Agustin Canapino, then Tristan Vautier and Stephen Simpson for JDC-Miller Motorsports. James Allen in an Oreca 07 Gibson for DragonSpeed won the LMP2 pole. In the GT Le Mans class, Nick Tandy put a Porsche on the pole as four different manufacturers qualified in the first two rows. IMSA GTLM champion Jan Magnussen of Corvette Racing was second, Ryan Briscoe in a Ford GT for Chip Ganassi Racing was third and followed by Davide Rigon in Risi Competizione's Ferrari 488. Marcos Gomes gave Via Italia's Ferrari 488 the pole in the GT Daytona class. Related Video:

Watch what happens inside a rotary engine

Since it looks like Mazda may very well revive the Wankel rotary engine as a range extender for electric cars, there's no better time to become reacquainted with the quirky internal-combustion engine. And there's hardly a better way to become reacquainted than by peering into a running rotary engine, which you can do with the video above. The video comes to us from the YouTube channel Warped Perception. The channel has already shown what happens inside a conventional internal-combustion piston engine by putting a clear cylinder head on top of a flathead engine. This new video shows off the rotary engine by adding a clear side to a tiny model-airplane engine, something that we weren't aware existed and are glad to know about now. Despite the tiny size, the engine is functionally almost exactly like the bigger versions you'll find in Mazdas from about 1967 to 2012. It has intake and exhaust ports on the edges of the rotor housing, and the triangular rotor swings about in a peanut-shaped housing. For maximum effect, jump to right around the 7:40 timestamp. This is the point at which a bit of acetylene is added to the air-fuel mix for a brighter flame. It's at this point that you can really see when the mixture combusts and how the pressure of the flame pushes the rotor to produce rotational motion. Each stage of the video does slow things down to make everything as clear as possible. Even if you already knew how rotary engines worked, it's still fascinating to watch, first because it's something you don't get to see usually, and also because of the engine's elegant simplicity. Related Video: Image Credit: YouTube / Warped Perception Weird Car News Mazda Technology Videos rotary rotary engine