hot cocoa on the couch posted:

Is this the AI rotary thread? I don't understand the AI thread scheme haha.

Anyway, I bought this little gem on Friday and drove it ~300 km home from its hometown:



A 1983 RX-7. It's an auto with no power steering, no A/C, no power windows and no power from the 12A, but goddamn is it a joy to drive. I like that the lack of fuel cut and no computer override on the trans means I can still send it to 8,000 RPM in first and second gears (yeah it's a lovely 3-speed, and the gearing sucks). It's on 14 year old tires, but they're in good shape and it feels solidly planted no matter how hard I pitch it into a corner. Great handling and very little body roll, I love it.

This thing is a bit of a unicorn up here in Canada, an all original, all-numbers-matching rust-free specimen. I bought it from a classic car collector who by his own admission doesn't care about Japanese cars and only bought it from the previous owner to preserve its heritage. The car has a bit of a fun story: it was bought in 1983 at the Wallaceburg Mazda dealership, driven for a year, traded in, then the second owner did the same and bought it, owned it for 18 months and traded it in, all at the same dealership. Cumulatively they put about 8,000 km on it. In 1986 it was bought by a school teacher from the dealer, and she owned it for 33 years. She was known as the "cool old lady teacher" in town that drove around the old Japanese sports car in the warm months. It has never once been winter driven (that's purportedly, but just by looking at it, that's easy to believe), and has obviously been driven gingerly and babied its whole life. When I bought it, it had just over 90,000 km on it!

I guess the town has an annual "yard-sale" market type thing where everyone participates and does their spring cleaning, and it's a sort of town tradition. Well, in 2019, this lady decided it was finally time to sell the old girl. She threw a "for sale" sign in the window and parked it outside her house along with her table. She didn't want to sell it, but approaching 70, she could barely turn the wheel without the power steering, and her kids didn't think she should be driving around a car without crumple zones, airbags, or much of anything in the way of safety equipment. The collector, also with a reputation about the town (owner of ~19 cars and dwindling when I met him), seen it and decided to buy it on the spot, not wanting to let some young punk come along and despoil the car. He had some dreams of restoring the car and possibly giving it to the Mazda dealership it was originally sold at, but covid came along not long after and in his advancing age, the collector decided it was time to downsize the collection.

So I came along and snapped it up. I've been trying to buy Miatas for the past couple months, but it's hard to get a good one for a fair price around here right now. When I seen the FB I knew I had to have it. I rushed down, took a closer look (yep, looks as amazing as it did in the photos), and offered him on the spot. $6,500 CAD which I was more than happy to pay, along with a safety cert so I had it on the road immediately. Here are a few more pics: https://imgur.com/a/U7p6P78

When I was shopping for my old Japanese sports car (wasn't sure of what I wanted until I decided I wanted a Miata), I had these ideas that I'd be buying a problem car and doing a bit of tuner poo poo to it, respray it myself if I needed to, etc. But after finding and buying this one, I feel something of a responsibility to keep it antique status, as close to factory as I can. It needs a new exhaust soon-ish, which is its only troubled component, and I'm thinking I'll replace it with a full Racing Beat engine-back stock-port system. I'll be getting new rubber, but not sure if I want to go with some legacy 13" ones to keep the stock wheels on or get some 15" ones to modernize it. I know for sure I'll be doing a preventative rebuild of the engine (and maybe, MAYBE a mild-medium street port) which as far as I know has never been rebuilt. At the same time I'd like to swap the auto to a manual for my own personal enjoyment, but I'll definitely be keeping that auto in case I ever want to restore it to pure factory. Aside from that, I've been thinking maybe replace the suspension (shocks, springs, bushings and sway bars) with the RB stock-ish kit, but not much otherwise. I'm keeping the lovely 12A, I love the novelty of the carb that needs to be choked in cold starts, I love the roll up windows, I love the tape deck, just all of the anachronisms, and I want to keep it that way.

One minor thing that I haven't been able to easily track down through google searches (and I haven't spent too much time under the hood yet) is that after driving, I'm noticing a very small amount of what looks like engine oil on the front of the hood, where it hinges forward. Like just a few drops holding to the lip of the front of the hood. Does this jump out as a common symptom of a failing component to any of you rotary guys? It's holding oil pressure, I haven't noticed a significant oil loss in the ~700 km I've put on it, nothing really feels wrong with the car. I am absolutely driving the poo poo out of it, and it's now under more stress than it's probably ever been in its life, so maybe I popped some old worn rubber seal somewhere is what I've been thinking, just haven't gone hunting for it yet.

Imperador do Brasil posted:

Just a nice downtown picture of the Del Sol while we were in the bicycle shop

stone soup posted:

someone followed my partner home to offer us this '92 740 wagon for a couple hundred bux because they'd seen us driving around the neighborhood in our other 740s.

RIP Paul Walker posted:

This is a cornucopia composed almost entirely of things I don’t typically like, but in this instance I absolutely adore it. My compliments to the chef.

Gigi Galli posted:

I’m getting my dumb evo back from the shop hopefully this week after boiling the brake fluid at my last track day. Adding more negative camber. Stupider tires. More expensive fluids. A colossal moron driving it. Gonna be good.

Over the season I swapped out the old stock front rotors for these two piece girodisc ones that are fantastic until the fluid gives up on you.



E: oh and this happened the day before I took it in which made me laugh

nerdrum posted:

I put my big brakes and stupid louvers on

Bulk Vanderhuge posted:

My first car was an 83 GSL, I'm biased but the styling still really holds up.

I should look around and see how much they're going for now...

Darchangel posted:

I'm in.
You WILL start a thread. That's not a request.

davebo posted:

Mazdado About Nothing.

(Rotary and Juliet?)

got off on a technicality posted:

My friends got together to drive each other's cars and have an extended doggy playdate. Today my ride is this rare green NSX (tomorrow the red 993 coupe peeking out on the right)

NitroSpazzz posted:

Took the E28 for groceries Sunday morning, wife grabbed a pretty good shot. Then went to a small car show fundraiser event later in the day. I've put around 300 miles on it in the last two weeks just cruising around on the weekend.

DropShadow posted:

Are you sure that’s the right badge on that beetle?

Darchangel posted:

https://youtu.be/i-DB9G0-eNQ

morothar posted:

WRX

morothar posted:

sensible

wzm posted:

it feels like the returns on policing those cars have got to be tiny at this point

Gigi Galli posted:

Lightbulb Out posted:

Hell yeah

NitroSpazzz posted:

Audi has been putting out some good looking cars lately, especially the S-line. That's a good looking autobahn stormer.

Things I did not expect to say in 2022, dang that's a good looking new Caddy.


After a less than great experience with the 1979 Fiat we picked up on Thanksgiving 2020 my wife was looking to try again and with nice spring weather she really wanted a convertible. This little thing popped up on fb marketplace about a half hour from us, test drove it on the 20th and brought it home on the 22nd. 1985 VW Cabriolet with the little 1.8L and a 5-speed, nice cloth interior. Odometer, with broken gears of course, shows 79k miles but overall condition I'd guess it's in the 80-90k range or maybe 100k. Paint is in good shape, interior is really good other than some strange trim damage. Will be something to tinker with and she wants to learn basic auto maintenance with it. Runs good other that right when it starts, smells overly rich.

Grabbed this picture before we pulled out the seats to rug-doctor them and everything else. Once we get it back together and cleaned up I'll post some more pictures.

Suburban Dad posted:

Yeah finding wheels is dumb. STS-V (probably even more rare, haha) shares it though I think, otherwise they're truck hubs.

NitroSpazzz posted:

I am not a smart man and therefore I did something very stupid...





Crappy, just drove it home from being delivered, pictures for now. 1997 Caterham 7 with a RaceLine built Zetec-R on ITBs. It makes glorious sounds, the clutch is very heavy, the brakes are un-assisted and mildly spooky, the transmission tunnel gets very warm and it's stupid quick. Needs some clean up and attention, probably a new battery as well.

Darchangel posted:

I was lucky enough to find a parts GSL-SE and put all the suspension under my '79.
Currently putting the *rest* of the SE in it, now.

um excuse me posted:

Every single seal, gasket, belt, and hose on a car built in 2009 is going to need to be replaced. 2009 was 13 years ago. I have no idea why BaT bidders don't understand this.

KakerMix posted:

Be it for me to gate-keep who is allowed (and because I am a part of the problem, really) but it's really, really hard to not grit your teeth at posers running into cool vehicle zones and simply trying to buy 'cool'. What happened to Harleys and muscle cars is happening to everything now, something that's earned it's cool through a more or less natural process now is commoditized and speculated by all the people you don't want in your community whatever it is.
It's been said before but if you have something cool, think really long and hard before you part with it. Expect you'll never have 'it' ever again.

Hadlock posted:

Backed my car onto the beach just far enough to get a photo, with no plan if I got stuck. Did not get stuck. Did get the photo.

joat mon posted:

Amen, but I'll take a cool evening.

meatpimp posted:

Denied. Looks good.

um excuse me posted:

Every hose, belt, seal, and gasket on that car is 21 years old. You do not want that car. Especially for $30k what?

MiniFoo posted:

OneSizeFitsAll posted:

I guess I'm a dinosaur as I still use CDs in my cars. If I were to hook up a device for music I'd definitely connect wired so as to avoid Bluetooth compression.

Olympic Mathlete posted:

TECHNOLOGY HAS GONE TOO FAR

Panty Saluter posted:

does it have a battery? I can't imagine it gets power through the play head lol