So, by some chance encounters and a long trip up and down the country. I’ve somehow managed to be (extremely) lucky enough to pick up a Mazda RX4.
Well, a bit of background about me. I was born into a rotary family, when I was a kid all I ever knew of cars was rotaries. We had an RX4 road car, Dad’s RX3 racer, my Mum’s RX3 road car, an R100 that was stored, my cousin’s RX3 racer and my godfather’s RX3 rally car used to swap places in the garage a fair bit too. Dad used to run his business tuning and repairing rotaries so we’d have customer’s road and race Mazdas around all the time. I was pretty lucky to grow up in an environment like that.
I bought my first rotary when I was about 17, I hadn’t even passed my driving test! It was a red RX7 FB Mark 3 that we got from a scrap yard. It was mechanically very good, it’d just been in a bit of a front end smash. Dad and I got it home and he repaired the body work, we took the engine out, cleaned up a few bits and Dad also built a nice-straight through pipe for it. That sounded very sweet! Wasn’t long before I took the FB out on track at Silverstone (still hadn’t got round to doing my driving test at this point), one spin but came back in one piece.
Then one day, was driving home minding my own business and the RX7 just started running like a tractor, then I heard this chunk of something go tinkling off down the exhaust pipe....tips! So, the car went in for a rebuild. We decided to take the 12A motor out put a 13B in it.... for various reasons it ended up being about 7 years later that I finally picked the car up! I sold the car a little while later to a friend but I did get to borrow it on occasion.
But the moment you sell a rotary, the first thing that happens is that you immediately want another one! Both my mum and dad had sadly passed on now and I guess for a few reasons I really wanted to go back to my history and pick up something old school when someone pointed out an RX4 that had been for sale for a while.
I emailed the chap to find out some info and sent a photo of the old RX4 that my Dad had had just for interest, and it turned out that this wasn’t just an RX4, it was the very same one! The same car that my Dad had back all those years ago. This is me, as a kid, passed out face down in that same car all those years ago...
So last weekend, I went up to see it. The chap had restored it a few years ago but turned it into a race car with a 13B streetport engine that had since been made ready for the road. She started up and sounded pretty awesome...
My Dad’s old 1977 RAC Competition Licence Holder sticker was still in the front windscreen...amazing history!
So, the long and short of it is, the car got delivered to me last night, there’s a few minor bits that need doing, probably oil change, plugs and one of those pesky MOT things to get it on the road but I’m pretty chuffed to have found an RX4 and especially this one. I’ll post updates as they come!
Well, a bit of background about me. I was born into a rotary family, when I was a kid all I ever knew of cars was rotaries. We had an RX4 road car, Dad’s RX3 racer, my Mum’s RX3 road car, an R100 that was stored, my cousin’s RX3 racer and my godfather’s RX3 rally car used to swap places in the garage a fair bit too. Dad used to run his business tuning and repairing rotaries so we’d have customer’s road and race Mazdas around all the time. I was pretty lucky to grow up in an environment like that.
I bought my first rotary when I was about 17, I hadn’t even passed my driving test! It was a red RX7 FB Mark 3 that we got from a scrap yard. It was mechanically very good, it’d just been in a bit of a front end smash. Dad and I got it home and he repaired the body work, we took the engine out, cleaned up a few bits and Dad also built a nice-straight through pipe for it. That sounded very sweet! Wasn’t long before I took the FB out on track at Silverstone (still hadn’t got round to doing my driving test at this point), one spin but came back in one piece.
Then one day, was driving home minding my own business and the RX7 just started running like a tractor, then I heard this chunk of something go tinkling off down the exhaust pipe....tips! So, the car went in for a rebuild. We decided to take the 12A motor out put a 13B in it.... for various reasons it ended up being about 7 years later that I finally picked the car up! I sold the car a little while later to a friend but I did get to borrow it on occasion.
But the moment you sell a rotary, the first thing that happens is that you immediately want another one! Both my mum and dad had sadly passed on now and I guess for a few reasons I really wanted to go back to my history and pick up something old school when someone pointed out an RX4 that had been for sale for a while.
I emailed the chap to find out some info and sent a photo of the old RX4 that my Dad had had just for interest, and it turned out that this wasn’t just an RX4, it was the very same one! The same car that my Dad had back all those years ago. This is me, as a kid, passed out face down in that same car all those years ago...
So last weekend, I went up to see it. The chap had restored it a few years ago but turned it into a race car with a 13B streetport engine that had since been made ready for the road. She started up and sounded pretty awesome...
My Dad’s old 1977 RAC Competition Licence Holder sticker was still in the front windscreen...amazing history!
So, the long and short of it is, the car got delivered to me last night, there’s a few minor bits that need doing, probably oil change, plugs and one of those pesky MOT things to get it on the road but I’m pretty chuffed to have found an RX4 and especially this one. I’ll post updates as they come!
Welcome back to the rotary world
