One of the joys of a good cars-and-coffee meetup is seeing rare machinery that you otherwise wouldn’t see just driving around. In Los Angeles, that’s a pretty high bar. Not to sound jaded but, at this point, I’m nonplussed by Porsche GT3 Tourings or any modern Ferrari. I do get very excited when I see golden-era stuff though; there was one time a Speed Yellow 996 GT3 was parked up and I was staring for an hour straight. The other day, I saw this modified Mazda RX-7 FD and frothed in a similar way.
- Car: Mazda RX-7 FD
- Location: Newcomb’s Ranch, Angeles Crest Highway, Los Angeles, CA
- Photog: Chris Rosales (IG + Twit @Chrishasacamera)
- Camera: iPhone 10 Pro Max
The Mazda RX-7 is certainly one of the most beloved Japanese sports cars of all time, especially the FD3S generation from 1993-1995 (it ran to 2002, globally). Powered by that Wankel rotary engine, it doesn’t use pistons to generate power. By a combination of magic, Nazi engineering, and metered oil injection, the 13B-REW engine claimed 286 horsepower from 1.3-liters with sequential twin-turbos. Weighing a little more than a Miata, this makes for a pretty fast machine.
What makes this one even more special: it’s a right hand drive JDM model. It seemed to be a Series Six model, which is early, though I can be mistaken. Another thing about FDs: They’re genuinely gorgeous sports cars with otherworldly styling and classic proportions. It mixes aggression and elegance more neatly than most cars I’ve seen. The performance is certainly something to behold, with extremely modern dual wishbone suspension at all corners, but the beauty of the car is another thing entirely.
As big as we could get it:
