I am dyslexic and when I was growing up my parent wanted to send me to Sylvan's learning center to see if they could teach me anything to help to overcome having dyslexia and I began going about 11 years ago (I am 21 so I was about 10) and Sylvan shares a building with a dentist and the dentist ownes a 93 base vr and the first time I saw at it I fell in love with it. The funny thing is I now workout and I overheard some people talking about cars when I was working out, so I jumped in the conversation and found out one of the guy I work out with is the doctor who ownes the 7 that made me fall in love with 7's. Kinda cool.

 

Mine would probably have to start in college when i roommate of mine had a CYM, beautiful car and he kept it spotless. So around the end of my 2nd year i bought a 90 T2 and started hangin out at the local rotary shop R&R, great guys and do great work. I kept seeing FD's coming in and out of there and although I loved my FC, like was stated before, the FD is the pinnacle of mazda rotary performance. So I finally finished got loans and other bills paid off and had enough money to buy one so I sold my FC and the Kia spectra I had and financed the other 8k or so i needed to get the FD. That's been about 2 years or so that I've had it and sometimes I just can't stop buying things. I don't like to get on it very often and i only try and drive it on the weekends but just looking at it parked makes me want to fire it up and go for a spin. Still worth every penny

 

I got an FC when I 16, and loved the engineering of the rotary engine. Then I got a job at a car dealership, and one of my co-workers had two FD's. We quickly became friends and he let me drive one of his FD's and I knew I had to get one. Three years later, I did!!!

 

I'm not one for short stories but I'll tell you my love for the rotary came from simply wanting to give my dad the only car he ever had talked passionately about, not because it was a rotary but the handling.

In the early 90's he had a 83 GS. Eventually the motor gave up on him and after sitting at a tow yard for months he sold it for $50.

Flash forward to January 2003. A 85 GSL had been sitting for months in a parking lot across the street. I decided it was time to find out whose it was. After asking a couple questions I found the owner and he wanted only $400 dollars. Next morning I towed it across the street and it was mine. Sadly, less than 10 minutes later my mint 89 supra had violently met with the rear end of a 2002 Saab vert.

I bought the car as a project car. The starter was the only problem, and a new one was in the hatch area. The interior was a 9 out of 10. The paint was original, and from 15 feet away it looked good, except for the drivers fender. Everything but the AC worked. What a lousy project car that turned out to be.

Any way I was going on tour for a few months so I "left" the car with my dad to start and run it up to temp, planning on giving him the car for Christmas. Well, sad to say, the 10 years had taken their toll on my dad and the car was "to low and bumpy" for him now.

While I had that 7 I developed relations with a couple local rotary shops. And that's when I saw it. A Montego Blue FD sitting in a darkened corner of the shop. After tracing the lines of the body with my fingers, I sat in the car and said this is what I want. So I spent several months researching and that's when I found this forum. I actually found my car through the classifieds here.

(Trust me this is a much shorter version.)

 

initial D

 

I saw my first FD at a car show, and instantly fell in love with the looks. Had no idea what it really was, or that it had a rotary.

Did research and decided that i had to own one.

 

I didn't use to be into cars much. I like road racing, but never got into how cars work. I was out one night and saw Mike Hollands(Rotrded) FD in the summer of 04. I was so impressed with the RX7, that I put my BMW for sale and bought and FD. When it came time for me to build, I sat down with Mike and planned it with his, and Tony's (bad), guidance. Now I'm hooked and have yet to enjoy the car at full power for the build. I'm learning. So, that is a big part of the so progress. But, Mike's car was the rreason I have an FD today.

 

When I got my first FD, my mom told me she wanted the Rx-7 when it frist came to America. That it was her dream car, SO i guess it's genetic that I love the FD.

 

I was bike guy before I was a car guy. But even though cars made me feel caged in I still managed to have fun in my old econo-boxes. I eventually picked up a beat up NA FC and despite not being a car guy I was able to appreciate the sporty nature of it. Then I slowly started making the transition from 2 wheels to 4 after I realized you can take turns faster in a car without having to stick your neck out.

I now own a FD but I'm mainly drawn to it's performance, which I will be putting to the test very soon. A big plus is that it's a pretty car but I also think other cars are pretty too (hello NSX, E30 M3, Integra Type R, Celica All Trac, Audi Quattro).

I've seen others fall in and out of love with various machines but nowadays, just like the women I meet, I'm in it for the long term when I choose my cars and bikes so I choose more carefully than when I was younger .

 

a friend of mine got a 97 S14 when he turned 16 and that got me into cars. the uniqueness of the rotary engine really hooked me as well. the final point was this though; after graduation, i had gone down to a subaru dealership to test drive wrx's. i got really lucky and got a young guy like myself to show me around, and after the first wrx test, we went back and he let me take out an STI.

two days later, i found a 93 w/ the turbos on the way out. drove it and there was NO comparision. i absolutely HAD to have an FD. that car had 147k on the original engine and the turbos only had another 5k in them if that and it blew my mind compared to the STI.

 

My next door neighbor growing up had an FB. I was in probably elementary school at the time. Being that he was an "older kid," I looked up to him and thought the car was cool. A few years later, he had a friend who started coming over with a Black GT convertable Mustang 5.0. While I liked the FB, I said to myself, "the Mustang is the car I am going to get when I get old enough." And that remained my goal for a number of years, that is until I saw my first FD. I remember exactly where I was. In the parking lot of a grocery store. I had no idea what it was at first. Being young, I thought it was maybe a Viper or something until I got a closer look. Fell in love.

Well, from that day forward, I knew I always wanted to get one. Obviously I couldnt afford to have one for a while. My first car was an 89 FC vert. I loved the car, but had to get rid of it when one of the rotors lost compression. I had a rotary keychain at the time though and never removed it from my key chain.

Finally, 6 years later, when I got out of school and got my first real job, I started saving money and found a fanastic VR FD with less than 25,000 miles on it in Baltimore. I flew up there (I live in Atlanta) checked it out, and bought it on the spot.

 

I was like 13 when Need for speed came out in 1995 and guess what car was most fun to drive . So I said to myself I'm gonna have one when i grow up. Now I'm searching for one hopefully to own next summer

 

It all began when I got tired of two things: driving a Honda, and driving something that was fwd. But before giving up on the H I had made many, attempts to stay with the name I started with. I tried to look for an Integra GSR, or an EK hatch with no p/w, moonroof, etc. Or even an older EF hatch. Then after searching for months I decided to do one thing. Go RWD. I let fate decide on which chasis I would drive (after a month of searching for a corolla).

Then my call was answered. While looking at local papers and online classifieds for months. I ran across an 88 SE. So I went to go check it out, and even though it was an automatic it was still fun to drive. Next I started researching a TII swap, a month later I find an 87 TII. I knew buying this was a way cheaper option than doing that nightmare of a swap and I could drive a manual tranny again After about 5 months after finding the TII I bought it without even doing a test drive. I just wanted to make sure it could start Then after enjoying the car for a few good months I decided on wanting to own all 3 generations of teh 7. I decided I might as well go for the most desired and expensive of them all, the FD. Before deciding on making the FD the next purchase I used to browse the 3rd gen section of the forums a lot and honestly I was scared as hell to find out about all problems that all the FD owners ran into. So then I made my decision and put a down payment on the FD. Then I deployed to Iraq for 4 months came back and paid it off.

I finally came down to a decision to sell one of the 7s for a few reasons. 1: I'm too young to own 2 cars, let alone decide to purchase a third. 2: No matter what generation RX-7 you own, it will rape your wallet and *** because their not cheap to work on. 3: It would be hard to budget for mods on the two 7s (why even think of a third). And if I move somewhere It will be a pain to move 3 cars + parts. So after deciding to sell my TII I posted in the for sale section and it sold fast (about 18min after posting) I felt so sad to lose my TII, I almost wanted to cry So now it's just me and the FD now, then later I bought an old AE86 and sold that for $200 profit after using it for two weeks before I deployed to Guam, which in 3 weeks I can go home and drive my beloved 7 again. I miss driving her =(.

Oops I just noticed the thread is who influenced you. I wrote too much to just get rid of it now lol. I influenced myself for my love of the rotary =). I will always own at least one. I plan on keeping my FD until I'm dead and then i want it to be my casket at my funeral. I could see it now, instead of a hurst they would just use a tow truck to pull me to the church. Then I want it to get crushed with my body inside of it and melted down into a rotor Man do I have my post mortem planned out. Anyways that's all. Below is a pic of my past cars sans the FD. I'm glad I don't have any pics of my first car. A Honda del Sol...

 

I don't remember when I first saw one. I just knew what they were. I was about 20 and I really liked the car but didn't really want one. 40K price is way too expensive for a kid in college so it was unaitanable.

Fast forward to a couple of years after I graduated. I started car shopping (at last lol). I drove camaros, 300 zx, mustangs, BMW's, I didn't have anything in mind I just wanted something nice. I saw this ad in the autotrade: 1993 rx-7. I thought huh well yeah I forgot about those cars I'm going to go check it out. When I saw it I remebered how much I loved them, then I drove it. Bought that **** on the spot lol. I have never looked back.

 

I was 16 years old in 1995...I drove my girlfriend to VA beach, and saw this exotic yellow car. "WTF is that?" I don't know, but I want one. Bought a 1991 FC...finished high school, then finished college...moved to ATL and bought a 1995.

 

1982 I bought a 1981 GSL ,had it for 12 years repainted it rebuilt the motor and trans before selling it .Bought a 90 2nd gen sold it to a customer and took his 86 2nd gen . drove it for two weeks and found a 93 FD ,drove it for 9 months traded it for the 94 that I have today .I have had several first gens that I sold and I have a gsl-se that I am going to build .It matches my third with silver paint and red leather .Last week I made a deal to get a third gen motor and trans to put in it .

 

I was looking for a sports car at a reasonable price when i was 17 an di thought of course that i wanted something like an s13 ....silly me i was out goofin off and test drove a 1988 gtu that was all beat to hell and when i got done driving it i thought well that is that im buying one. so i bought an s5 white fc drove it for a year and sold it to buy an fd i have had it between four and five years now and i will never sell it i looooove that car

 

if you look carefully at the years of the RX-8 production "FE" was used from 2003-2004/5 and was changed to "SE3P" from then on. yet some ppl have noted their 2006-up 8's have "FE" while most others have "SE"


My first sighting of an FD was at Cory Fairbanks Mazda in 93, i was about 9 at the time, and i saw it in the showroom, one of the first FD's in the central florida area.

Brilliant Black was the color, and i immediately hopped inside to take it all in.....
mind you i didnt know anything about cars, but because it resembled a 'Vette (it was the car to have back then) i loved it. little did i know, my dad an i took it out for a test drive and the rest is history.... my first car was a 85 GSL-SE, and im on my 3rd car, my 2nd FC, and im hoping to get an FD soon.

My dad never did buy the FD, $40k was quite a bit back then, not as much tho now, but i promised myself that after graduating from my university that i will own an FD first, then a Supra(blame Gran Turismo 1 on that)

i know several ppl who've owned and still own FD's and they let me drive it whenever we hang out cause they know i love these cars to death.

 

I am ashamed of my influence.........

 

I was in 5th grade waiting to get picked up from school when i saw a CYM R1 cruise by. At the time i was just getting into cars, but regardless, i thought it was the most beautiful car i had ever seen. From that day i told myself i would own a CYM R1. All through middle school and high school i read this forum like my life depended on it. I was obsessed. Then when it came time to buy my 1st car i of course wanted the 7 but i couldnt afford it. So i bought my first car, a 1986 BMW 325es(which i still daily drive ) and quickly got my 1st job. I worked an insane amount of hours and saved every penny not spending anything. I was completely motivated to have that car despite all of the nitemare stories on this forum not to mention the sky high price tag(well for a high schooler it was sky high). I Got a new job with better pay and continued there all through highschool saving my money. Finally in my first yr of college i had enough for a nice down payment. I went through sooo many loopholes to even get a bank to finance a 1993 Mazda. Well long story short, after billions of phone calls and sleepless nights i was approved and found the car of my dreams.

No it was not a CYM, but I am completely happy with my VR R1. I bought it about 6 months ago with 57k on the clock all original. I am extremely proud of my accomplishment and will always be. This is a goal that i set for myself and after much hard work and dedication i achieved it. I baby this car like it was my own child haha i know im not the only one! Well i realize this post is getting way too long but as u guys can tell i am proud of my car and myself. Im sure many of you have similar if not better stories.

 

The guy whos A$$ I spanked when he decided to race me on my GSXR750 at a red light. And mind you I really was minding my own business. He starts reving it up so I was game. The light changed, I jumped off the line about 2 lengths ahead of him. I took my left hand off the bar and waved bye bye to him as I short shifted to second, When I hit the end of the tach in third at about 100 he had given up . It was in Scottsdale in 1994 and he was in a red 3rd gen. I already had owned an FD for 4 years so I felt I would need to try out the 3rd gen. I had raced a lot of cars and bikes and that RX7 really impressed me.

 

These are some good stories.

I guess my Dad and a friend in Okinawa influenced me.

When I was young (probably about 7 or 8, about the mid 80's), I remember my Dad talking about this little silver sports car called an RX-7 that was for sale on the side of the road. My Mom was always very cautious about money and my Dad was always about spending it, so I remember him trying to convice her to let him get it. It was an '82 (don't remember what model, it had a sunroof though). She was really pissed when he came home with it one day, and I really had no idea what it was or why it was special, but my brother loved it. Eventually my brother ended up getting it when he was in HS and he ran that car hard, and it of course gained the name "silver bullet". Dad had accidently sideswiped it and several other things had happened to it, so eventually my brother got rid of it when he was in the Navy down in Florida. Not long after that, when I was in HS, Dad mentioned that maybe my brother could get the car back for about $50 and I could have it. I still didn't know much about it but hell, $50 for a fun little sports car, that's a good deal. It never worked out though.

In 2000 I got stationed in Okinawa and a few guys in my shop built RX-7s. One of the guys had been stationed there for a total of about 12 years, spoke fluent Japanese, was on his second Japanese wife with 5 total kids LOL, and rebuilt the engine in his FC just about monthly (he was getting at least 650hp, that's as high as the highest gauging dyno on the island could get I was told). I never forgot the FB my Dad had gotten so many years before, and I decided I wanted to build an RX-7 too. Although I wasn't sure that I could bring it back to the U.S. and I didn't want to lose out on so much money. My buddy found an FC for me for $300. It had been drifted and really beat up and the guy had left the island without taking care of the paperwork so I couldn't even register the damn thing, I don't know what I was thinking. But we pulled all the usable parts off the car and the ******** blew it up out on the beach while I was in Saudi, haha. Anyway, I've had a Prelude since 99 and for some reason I wanted to dump alot of money into it, make it AWD (I was already tired of FWD), all kinds of crazy ****. When I moved from Japan to NC in late '03, the Prelude started having transmission problems and I was getting screwed over by AAMCO transmissions (what's new there?) so I started shopping for a second car. I thought about a Tiburon until I discovered it was FWD. Then I remembered the RX-7. A younger guy in Japan had gotten an FD before I left and I'd looked at it but it looked too small for me (I'm 6'3") so I didn't give it much thought. But I found a '93 BB in SC for $10k so I went and test drove it. Like it's been said, that was that. Although I didn't get that one cause it was pretty beat up. I offered the guy $7,500 IIRC and he turned it down, so I decided to wait a while and just save up some money. A few months later, with the FD never having left my thoughts or prayers, I got an email from the same guy in SC telling me he'd take my offer since he knew I loved the car and would take care of it. That made me start looking again (I was looking for a '94 Touring for around $10k), and one night at work I got on the computer and found exactly what I was looking for, but it was in Denver. I emailed the guy and told him I'd give him what he was asking if he paid for a way to get the car to NC, whether it was shipping it or me flying out and driving it back. So he bought me a plane ticket and after I looked at the car for a couple minutes and sat in it I decided I had to have it. He even gave me some gas money to get back since I was broke, and he also gave me $250 for some bad paint spots (we hadn't even discussed that), so he was a good guy. I ended up meeting my Dad in Southern Illinois on the way back (he's a truck driver and just so happened to be hitting the highway the same place and time I was). So he checked out my new car and couldn't get over the fact that it doesn't have tilt wheel, HAHAHA. I've had the car since Sept '04 and I've never looked back. I love it like it's my child. I've learned so much with this car, and it has everything I want in a car. It's beautiful, it's legendary, it's fast, and it makes me feel like I'm one with the car when I drive it. I've never driven anything like it and I probably never will. I've also decided to own all three generations, and as much as I'd love to find the '82 silver FB that started it all, I'll have to settle for the '84 red FB I got for free that was sitting for 6 years out on the farm where I grew up, at my Uncle's house. Turns out he has an SA out there too, not sure which year it is, but he wants to charge me for that one since he now knows how much I love RX-7s. There is also a totalled FC sitting in those same woods with no running gear. I want that one too, for art if nothing else, haha. Apparently it donated the engine they thought they could put in the FB, haha.

Sorry this is so long, all the good stories motivated me, haha.

 

^

 

Oh yeah, I forgot part of the story, if you can imagine that, haha. Now I'm looking to sell the Prelude cause it's got so many problems and it could never compare to the FD anyway. I used to love that car, but it's not even close to the love I have for the FD and all other RX-7s now. My Mom and one of my female friends keep telling me I should keep the Prelude and sell the 7, I tell them they're out of their damn minds, haha. They know I'd never do that. And I drove my buddy's GReddy-turbo'd RX-8 before I deployed and I'm thinking about getting an RX-8 when I get back, haha. Someday I still gotta build those two 1st Gens and get an FC though.

 

Although he's not around much anymore and I haven't seen him in nearly 3 years, Tim Benton probably had the most influence when I got my 7.