(upbeat music) - I'm standing next to
one of the cleanest, lowest mileage second gen Mazda
RX-7's known in existence. Now, Mazda made the second gen or FC RX-7 from 1985 to 1992 and during that time the built only 1,500 10th anniversary additions
which this one is right here. This is an 80's time capsule and today, we're gonna crack it open and we're gonna show you five things even the most die hard fans
might not know about this car. We're going bumper to
bumper on the FC RX-7. (imitates motor rumbling) It's rotary time. (upbeat music) Thanks to Ring for sponsoring this episode
of Bumper to Bumper. If you want to feel safer at home and know what's going on
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companies that support Donut. (electronic music) So before we get into this, we gotta appreciate
what we have before us. This car, this 1988 10th anniversary RX-7 has only 1,803 miles. If you do the math,
that's (modem screeches) 56 miles a year. (electronic music) Now today, we're gonna use this example to dish out some of
the interesting details on one of the most beloved
cars to ever leave Japan, starting with the looks. (electronic music) Now if you take a look
at it, you might think "This looks kinda similar to
maybe a Porsche 924 or 944" and if it looks similar,
well you'd be right because it's almost
modeled exactly like it. See Mazda knew how popular
the 944 was in American market and America is where the majority of all the
first gen RX-7's were sold. So they had this idea. They were like, "hey, why
don't we use the 944 to "help style the car and become a rival of that German brand." Now there's a big misconception out there that the designer of the
924 also designed this car. Harm Lagaay, he didn't do it,
that's not true, that's false. This car was just copied
by Mazda engineers. So I hope that answers your questions because you guys asked
us on the community page. Which speaking of, start using that
community page on YouTube. We're gonna be asking a lot more questions and we wanna give you some answers when we shoot Bumper to Bumper. (electronic music) Now while the cars
might look very similar, they're very different animals. The engines are different,
inside the car is very different. The suspension set up, all that stuff is all very unique to each one. But to add insult to injury, this car copied the Porsche's looks and then went on to beat it in Car and Driver's Best
List in 1986 and 1987. It was also Motor Trend's
Import Car of the Year in 1986 and it beat out Porsche's 924, 928 and they're flagship 911. So the Porsche boards were a little pissed cause you could get a similar looking and slightly better performing car for $10,000.00 less money. (electronic music) So when you look at this
car, your first thing is, "Yeah, they stole Porsche's design" but you also look at it and think, "Man, that thing screams freakin' '80's" and this thing has got some
sweet pop up headlights. Max, pop me on over there. (upbeat music) So let's talk about pop up
headlights for a second. You guys know the song. We made a slappin' beat all
about these engineering marvels. Pop up headlights were
at a peak in the '80's and they even made them all the way up into the early 2000's. The Corvette C5 actually had them on 'em but they were taken away from us because of more strict regulations involving pedestrian safety. Once a lot of manufacturers
started using pop up headlights they used some shotty electronics and so they would sometimes
open, sometimes not, and they'd get stuck,
they'd go up and down. You've probably seen a
lot of winking faces, winking eyes with pop up headlights. They're not as safe as you would probably
want headlights to be. (upbeat music) Which brings us to our
second fact about the FC RX-7 and that's this clear lens right here. Say, you're driving your
car during the day time and you wanted to flash your lights. You got pop up headlights. You don't want to have to
pop them up, flash the light, and then bring them back
down, that's way to much work. And so, the Mazda engineers designed this clear lens right here and so when you flash the bright lights you can see it through this clear lens. Pretty cool little touch. You don't need a dedicated bright light flashers during the day. (upbeat music) Another thing that makes
these pop up headlights even sweeter, is that they're squirters. (jets whirring) So apparently, you want
to clean your lights, you can squirt some juice on them and that's the way to clean them. They don't wipe, they don't do anything, they just squirt juice
and it really squirts ya. And just to clarify, by juice, I mean windshield washer fluid. So how about we go to the inside and see what other tasty little treats are in this cool '80's mobile. (smooch) (giggles) (car door squeak) (upbeat music) Now the first thing when
you get in this car, it's super comfortable. Now this was built as a touring car, it wasn't a strictly sports car so it actually is pretty roomy. This leather is freakin'
nice man, so soft, super soft and everything in here is all original. The head unit which has all these kind of like Space Mountainy
looks digital but's all analog. In terms of being the most tricked out cassette
player you could ever have in factory car, this car has it. First of all you can
select your tape type. So back in the day, depending on the type
of tape you recorded to, you could optimize your settings for that. You could also optimize your EQ. This has one, two three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine different EQ adjustment tabs. (electronic music) Has these twisty knobs for
all your important functions like your windshield wipers,
your pop up headlights, your pop up headlight mister
in case you wanna get squirted. Now aside from all the
features in this car that are standard in RX-7,
this is a 10th anniversary and it got a couple different upgrades. It got a MOMO steering
wheel, a MOMO shifter, and it's got 10th anniversary
embossed right on the front which is really really cool. Which brings me to my
third fact about this car and that is that they made
three special edition RX-7's from the factory. The Infini which was a JDM only model and they made the GTUs which
was the Turbo II platform which didn't have a turbo
in it which was kinda weird and then they made the all
white 10th Anniversary Editions. Now companies, all the time go hog wild with special editions and this is one of those
editions that they built just to sell more cars. There's nothing particularly
different about this car except for a couple
different added things. It has bronze tint on it, like I said it has
different steering wheels, but from a performance standpoint it's the exact same car as the Turbo II. It's more of an aesthetics
package but you know gotta sell cars somehow. (electronic music) Okay so I'm gonna take a
good ole fricken' whiff. The smells like a brand new car would. You can smell the
leather, it's new leather. That's the overbearing scent
when you get in this car. It is just new car
smell, new leather smell. It doesn't smell old and musty, it literally smells like a brand new car, and again, this car is 32 years old. Go into your dads closet and
sniff his leather jacket. That's what this smells like. (upbeat music) So you guys wanna hear what a
1,800 mile 13 BT sounds like? (car beeping) (car engine revving) I want to give her the berries. (car engine revving) It's really smooth. There's like no vibration in this car. Alright. (car beeping) Now, we didn't hit red
line there but if we did, you woulda heard something,
you woulda heard a little (shift buzzing) and that's because, this
RX-7 has a shift buzzer. You might of heard of a shift light, a light that illuminates when it tells you it's time to
shift when you hit red line. Instead of having a shift light, this car has a shift buzzer. That's a rotary thing that Mazda developed and it's all because of what's going on under
that hood right there. (electronic music) Now the whole reason that
this car has a shift buzzer is cause of this little puppy right here. The 13B Turbo II rotary engine. So rotary engines are
known to be high revving. They're not like a reciprocating engine where you got a lot of moving
parts going up and down. Everything is rotational. So a couple benefits to that. One, there's no vibration. This car, when I started it before, you can barely feel
anything moving at all. There are some people who think that there are reliability
issues with these motors. Because it's rotary, it can over rev and it can go too high in
the rev range and blow up. So they have a reputation
for being somewhat unreliable but that's really not all that fair. If you keep oil in this motor
and you don't over rev it these things are very, very reliable and that's not to say
that you should baby it. No, no, don't do that,
don't baby a rotary. You gotta get it up in the
high RPM's every now and then or else it'll just
build up carbon deposits and you don't want that. So if you do have a rotary, give her the beans every now and then and get her up there to 7,000. (electronic music) Now this is a 1.3 Liter rotary engine. It makes 182 horsepower and
183 foot pounds of torque and because this engine is so small, they can put it more towards
the center of the car. Now this car has a perfect
50-50 front and rear balance which makes it really, really good under the hands of professional racers. Where my RedSuns at? (electronic music) And speaking of racing, this
car was really, really good in the IMSA series in competed in. So good, that we're gonna go to the back and show you another fun
fact about this FC RX-7. (feet shuffling) (electronic music) Now this car came ordered
with factory louvers. Some people don't like
them, some people do, but we're gonna pop 'em open 'cause what I really want to show you is what's underneath these louvers. (upbeat music) These things, they feel
like I could rip them off. They're pretty fragile
and you gotta hold it so washing your rear
window is a two person job. But the thing that I wanna
show you specifically is this little sticker right here, which is our 5th fact and that is that the RX-7
won the IMSA GTU Championship from 1980 to 1987 and they have special
stickers put on the car from the dealers and they change depending on the year of the car. This one, since it's an '88 says IMSA GTU RX-7 Mazda
Manufacturers Championship 1987. You don't see these on a lot of RX-7's one, because certain
dealers didn't put them on and two, they probably got
removed over the years, but this one has it, it's
original from the factory and it's pretty sweet. (electronic music) You wanna know how a 1,800 mile mint condition
FC RX-7 came about, the story is actually
really super interesting. The person who found this low
mileage car was Cody Walker. His wife's grandfather went in to the dealership to buy a truck and walked out with a truck and this car. It sat for 20 years under a
cover until Cody discovered it and then he sold it to my man Sean Lee who brought it all the
way down from Oregon to the streets of Southern California. Sean has only put about
600 miles on this car over the last five or six years. So he's saving this car by driving it around a
little bit each year. - [Cody] So I was at JCCS and somebody made me an
offer I couldn't refuse so I sold RX-7. - [Sean] Yeah I couldn't resist. Proud owner of the lowest
model FC in the world. - James did not buy
this car from Sean Lee. It's part of Sean Lee's
collection of cars. It's not James, James likes it, I like it, but Sean won't sell
it so we're busting myths. Bye for now.
