Must Be Rotary

Must Be Art > Wasting Gasoline > Former RX-7

Here's the RX-7 parked in front of the (former) corporate headquarters of Qualcomm, where I used to work on CDMA Cellular telephone software to help pay for all the fun (I'm retired now). It's a 1993 Mazda RX-7, Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year. Yes, it uses the Wankel Rotary engine. Too bad they don't make them for the U.S. market anymore.

Here are two shots of me rounding the final turn onto the main straightaway at Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona. If you mention this to my insurance agent, be sure to tell him it was a driver's school, not a race. Since there wasn't a functional RX-7 club in my area when I got the car, I run with the BMW CCA. You can see me driving with a CCA instructor.

Here's the RX-7 after it shredded one of its main belts.

In March 1998 I drove it to Colorado for a temporary work assignment. It was snowing in the Vail Pass. Ugh.

The reward was spectacular scenery. Here the RX-7 is dwarfed by the scenery in a river canyon on the Peak to Peak Highway.

... here's a view of the Devil's Backbone. I was too lazy to get out of the car.

Around Christmas 1998 I had the engine rebuilt. The day I drove it home (after a full month in the shop!) the metal pan that protects the underside of the transmission fell halfway off. Here's the junior mechanic under the car in my garage, bolting it back on.

It was never really right after that. A mere 15,000 miles later, the mechanic told me it needed a new engine again. Screw that. I sold the car to a dealer and ordered a new BMW Z4 on January 30, 2004.

Updated February 2, 2004. Comments to kb5mu@amsat.org