Mazda was the first company in Japan to test rotary engines for their cars. More popularly known as Wankel engines, (named after the German founder, Felix Wankel) these engines were completely revolutionary. This engine uses an eccentric rotary type of design to convert pressure into rotating motion, where parts rotate in one direction unlike the conventional engines that makes use of pistons that are reciprocating.

Mazda first collaborated with NSU, Germany in 1961, but there was some teething problems. So for the next few years, Mazda engineers rectified all the problems and refining the engine. They installed the first of these Wankel's in the model called Mazda Cosmo Sport in 1967. 

The name Cosmo appealed to the management as it meant, outer space. This was at a time during the 1960s when both the USA and the former USSR (Soviet Union) was racing against time to put man, animal and do several experiments in space.