If you hadn’t noticed, Japanese sports cars from the late 80s and early 90s have been on fire as of late. Credit the fact that they are cheaper than air-cooled Porsches and quite a bit cheaper, along with the still-compelling performance right out of the box. The Nissan 300ZX, Acura NSX, and Toyota Supra are the models that often come to mind first, with two of those being turbocharged road rockets and the third a mid-engined wonder. The RX-7 occupies a unique spot in that group, as it’s more exotic than a 300ZX; more unique than a Supra; and certainly far cheaper than an NSX. Find this low-mileage twin-turbo here on eBay with bids to $45,100 and the reserve unmet.
What a shape: the RX7, for my money, is one of the prettiest sports cars ever made, especially among Japanese models. While everyone loses their mind over the Supra Twin Turbo owing to its fame on the big screen and excessive styling with the gigantic rear spoiler, the RX-7 is simply beautiful. When you factor in that Mazda has always been a bit of a small-time, niche player in the grand scheme of things, coming up with a car like this is nothing short of amazing. And let’s not forget the biggest curveball of all: that turbocharged rotary engine under the hood, which is like nothing else any other modern manufacturer has come up with.
The seller’s car is undoubtedly a time-warp specimen. It has beautiful leather seats and blemish-free carpets. It is a two-owner car with no accidents in its history file, and the cockpit looks every bit of the low-mileage specimen that it is. The RX-7 was not only a beauty from the outside but the interior is quite timeless as well. In general, I’ve never seen one of these in true trainwreck condition, but that’s also because they come up for sale so infrequently. The other detail that sets this one apart is how it remains in bone-stock condition, as many of these turbocharged wonders are modified to accept more boost and/or to look like the one from The Fast and the Furious with its grotesque bodykit.
The color, Chaste White, makes this car a one-of-692 example of RX-7s that left the factory in this scheme. The seller notes it runs and drives well and rides on new tires. The only issue at present is a grind into 5th gear under hard shifts; unfortunately, that is a problem that rarely goes away on its own, so figure on replacing bushings or repairing a synchro at some point. The bidding is quite active but still not enough to clear reserve, which we’ve increasingly seen with the FD-chassis RX-7s as long-term owners are hoping to cash in on the momentum behind seemingly all sports cars from the 1990s.
Owned one in the infamous Montego Blue. These are great cars, at least I thought so and owned all three generations at one time or another. Rotarys are low torque on the bottom but spin them up and hang on. The twin turbo set up on these works quite well. Small to get things moving and then it switches to the larger unit. Mazda designers created such a beautiful looking car and engineers brought it all together. Keep the oil changed!! They will do just fine as long as you feed them, referring to the oil injection, they use oil to to lubricate those apex seals. Very important they get that and it comes from the lubrication system. Can’t call it a crankcase as a rotary doesn’t use a crankshaft. The mention of the Supra is true for some reason they bring bigger bucks but never drove or owned one so can’t say why. They sure don’t have the proportions.
Speaking of the Mazda engineers, when these were new I’d read they went to painstaking efforts to reduce weight, shaving off as little as mere grams anywhere they could, even going so far as positioning ignition components to make the spark plug wires as short as possible. A true case study in how many tiny optimizations, seemingly insignificant by themselves, can really add up in the big picture.
Mazda needs to bring it back without the rotary.
Or without the warranty!
I’ve never seen it in this color and it really shows off a handsome coupe from the bean shape era. No bean design is so together.
I’ve driven a low mile stock one that had some gremlins, but I could live with them for such a great handling beauty.
A legitimate sports car. They weighed in at 2800 lbs. combined with a 255 Hp rotary the performance was stellar for the era. Lots of seat time with the gen II and gen III.