Here's Why the 1990s Mazda RX-7 Is Getting Really Expensive

this is a 1994 Mazda rx-7 and it's currently listed for sale for $50,000 50 grand for a 94 Mazda but then again this car comes to me from LBI Limited a local seller of exotic cars here in Philadelphia the same people who lent me the Ferrari f40 and the Lamborghini Yelp up so you know it's not just any 94 Mazda indeed the rx-7 was Mazda sports car to compete with the Nissan 300zx and the Toyota Supra and the Mitsubishi 3000gt in the mid-1990s but while all those cars went after more power and more technology and as a consequence more weight the rx-7 was the opposite of all that this car had only 255 horsepower but it also weighed only 2800 pounds was a full thousand pounds lighter than a Mitsubishi 3000gt VR 4 you could take an rx-7 you could put an adult male polar bear inside this car and it would still weigh less than a 3000 GT VR for the rx-7 also has a few other things going for it for example I happen to think that this is the single most beautiful Japanese car ever manufactured ever it was also sold in the United States in this body style the FG body style from 1993 to 1995 only three model years which makes it pretty rare and this is the best version this is the sporty r2 model which had sports suspension and some other performance upgrades over the base rx-7 and the luxury oriented touring version this one is also a one owner car with only 31,000 miles so today I'm gonna take you on a tour of the rx-7 and I'm going to show you all of its weird quirks and its unusual and cool features and then I'm going to get it out on the road and tell you how this thing drives and then of course I'm gonna give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the rx-7 and its status as a future collectible click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also written a market report on the other 1990s Japanese sports cars I will start on the outside with getting in the rx-7 now in order to preserve the beautiful body line of the rx-7 Mazda decided not to stick the door handle or the keyhole on the door itself like every other car instead they hid up here in this black thing so at first glance you can't even tell if this car has a door handle or a keyhole but it does the keyhole is surprisingly high for a car the door handle you just do this and you're in now open the door and you'll find that the door frame is a rather odd shape its circular on the bottom and on the top and it has this giant black lip around it instead of body colour like most stores but more interesting on the inside of the door is the interior door handle it's not just a regular door handle you pull instead if you want to get out of the rx-7 you pull the door handle towards you and that's how you open up the door next up is maybe my favorite Cork in the entire rx-7 and that would be the automatic power windows now most cars have automatic power windows at least for the driver side you push the window down there's window rolls all the way down without you having to hold the button but this car takes a novel approach in this car if you push the button down for the automatic window the button stays down it locks in place as the window rolls down and once the window has stopped rolling down then the button pops back up so that you can use it again I've been in a lot of cars with automatic power windows and I have never seen this before it is really bizarre next time move on to the power locks this car has power locks although it doesn't have keyless entry instead you just get a key and there's no power lock button inside the car instead in order to lock the doors automatically you just lock one door and the other door automatically locks also you want to unlock them and unlock one door and the other door automatically unlocks sort of a novel approach to power locks but then again this is a small car with like two doors so you really don't need anything more than that now something of locking let's move back to the windows and the other interesting things about the rx-7 is the driver has the ability to lock the windows and by windows I mean just the passenger side so even though this is only a two-seat car with only two doors the driver can still lock out the passenger if you're engaged in some fight so the passenger can't roll down their window more interesting controls in the center console you will find two buttons one is labeled security and the other is labeled overheat exhaust system when you go to press them you find out they aren't buttons at all instead they look like buttons but they're actually lights security comes on in the alarm is on to let you know that the alarm is on overheat exhaust system is something I've only ever seen in this car I looked it up but it turns out there's a sensor in the interior floor of this car that measures the heat coming from the exhaust it's getting too hot this light will come on to let you know that hey your exhaust is getting hot and it might get your interior hot and so maybe it's time to cool it a little bit I'm not really sure what you do if that light comes on except maybe panic but it's there next up moving on to another rx-7 interior quirk I like the ashtray because it's inside the center console in a cutout in inside it there is a cutout and inside that there is a cutout you open that cutout and you can put your ashes in it and of course the entire ashtray cutout can be removed from the center console when you want to dump your ashes also interesting inside the Ark sevens interior this one of first cars where the entire interior sort of geared towards the driver obviously the center control stack is sort of angled towards the driver that was pretty common at the time but it goes well beyond that there's one unbroken line from the driver's side door to the center console it really makes this thing look like a cockpit and several things aren't even available to the passenger take a look for example at the cigarette lighter it's all the way over behind the steering wheel it's basically only for the driver this car is really really driver focused you could have a passenger in this car of course but the entire purpose of it was to drive now next up obviously this isn't a very big car especially when it comes to interior space there's only two seats there's not much storage but Mazda has given you more storage than you might think behind both front seats there's a little storage bin where you can stick stuff that you don't want people to see now interestingly the swords been locked but only on the passenger side the driver's side one doesn't lock don't put anything in there you want to get stolen on the passenger side you can lock it and then that's the vault in the rx-7 no one can see it and no one can take it unless they have the key and speaking of storage area in the rx-7 back here is the cargo area this thing is ultimately a hatchback now the cargo area is fairly wide and fairly long but it isn't very deep there's only about six eight inches of space here you can't really get all that much stuff but here's something I bet you didn't know about this car there's a pass-through between the cargo area and the cabin for the longer items that you might need to put in this car now interestingly even if you put the pass-through down you only get about nine more inches of space because then your items are gonna hit the front seat but it's there nonetheless other interesting things in the trunk how about the spare tire which is under the floor it's bright yellow it's one of those spare tires designed to shame you into going to the tire store and get your tire fix also in the trunk are the tire changing tools so you can mount that bright yellow spare on your rx-7 now in the interesting thing about the tire changing tools to me is they're in two separate compartments on either side of the trunk and the compartments are just slightly different sizes just a little bit different one on one side one on the other I'm sure there's a good explanation for that I don't know it is next up we move on to the headlights and the rx-7 like mini 90's cars has pop-up headlights but here's the interesting thing about the rx-7 if you turn on the headlights obviously they pop up and they turn on as you can see but there's also a button inside the interior you push it in the headlights go up without turning on I'm not really sure why you can put the headlights in the up position without turning them on I don't know if it's to admire your pop-up headlights or maybe to clean them all you have to do is push this little button to the left of the steering wheel and if you wanted to drop push it then they turn back off moving on to the back of the arc seven you notice you don't see a red light for the brake light in the taillight or an orange light for the turn signal or a white light for the reversing light that's because in the rx-7 they've hidden them under this black shroud to preserve the cars look I think that's kind of odd a surprising part is that even though the shroud is dark tinted it doesn't hide the brake lights or the turn signals when you put them on you can see them nice and clearly I always like this design element in 90s Japanese cars the brake lights it's like they don't exist until you need them to next we move on to the logo now if you don't know much about the rx-7 90s mazda or maybe if you're a little bit younger you're probably wondering what is this circle circle logo on the back of this cars it's some weird rx-7 logo it isn't this was actually Mazdas logo throughout the 1990s and it has an interesting story this wasn't intended to be the logo the initial logo that mazda had come up with was a circle with a diamond inside of it but after they used that logo on their cars for a couple of years it was deemed to be too similar to the French automaker Renault and so they had to scramble for a new logo so they came up with a circle with a circle inside of it apparently they weren't satisfied with this logo they only used it for a few years before they went to the the wing thing that they're using now but this was Mazdas logo for a long time even though it wasn't the original logo they intended to use next up i already mentioned how much I love the design of this car and pilots because it's just so clean and uninterrupted and flowing there's no weird stupid curves or cut like in a lot of modern cars but if you look closely on the rear and you can see this weird number reflected on the trunk turns out it's the part number for the spoiler Mazda thought they could mount it on the bottom of the spoiler and no one would ever find it but they didn't count on me and then of course there's the engine while all the Mazda rx-7 1990s Japanese sports car rivals use traditional six-cylinder engines the rx-7 uses a rotary engine I'll spare you the tech details because if you're into this stuff you probably already know about it but basically the RX Evans engine skips traditional cylinders and pistons for a rotating triangular part that looks like a giant spinning Dorito the rotary engine is highly uncommon in the rx-7 and later Mazda rx-8 are the only notable modern cars that have used it so those are all the Cork's and now it's time to take the rx-7 out on the road which I'm very excited about so it's so small in here alright so this kind of 31,000 miles it's like a new car alright it's real tight in here my knees are just like barely around this steering wheel the shifter is great the shifter is like really tight short throws and you stick it in gear like you really really feel the shift you're going to get I really love the feel of the shifter these old Japanese turn signals tongs just plastic plastic but they'll never break this car is just you can just tell in three minutes of driving these cars just so much more connected to the road and everything than a modern car part of that is because it just doesn't have all the safety equipment the modern car the both side of your bags in this thing but you're also just so low when you're right on it you feel it and you can you're turning the steering wheel it's heavy and you feel like you're really driving this thing and that's kind of the appeal all right downshift I don't think I've ever been so shocked by the acceleration of a 250 horsepower car the thing is just doesn't weigh anything it's quicker than I expected it really hit it just doesn't sound like a really fast crazy car yeah yeah floor it and I hear the turbo sound but I don't really hear a lot else the ride is really rough I'm on the highway and this is a notoriously rough section of highway but it's not incredibly bad it gets worse further up this section is okay but the car what this is the thing though if you want a car where you feel super connected and when you know you're you're feeling every little bit of the road blah blah blah you also have to take the bad with the good and the bad in this case means dealing with a rough ride that is stoplight it's actually surprisingly refined considering how it's relatively punishing on the road setting at a stoplight it doesn't really show you a rattle or anything like that you can hear a little bit of exhaust but this car has the only aftermarket thing on it as an aftermarket exhaust and so you can hear that just a little bit the only disappointment I have driving is cars I can't look at it I just love how this car looks so much I was driving here behind this car in my car just looking at it I was thinking boy I Drive a lot of cars but very few of them I just you know just have such an appealing attractive timeless design it's just a beautiful look I really mean that cars don't look like this anymore you know in today's world everybody's doing cuts and all these weird little things and this car was just it was so clean oh man Blake ribs it doesn't quite have the planted feel that a mid-engine car NSX or an exotic car has but in terms of you know sports cars with 250 horsepower that cost 40 grand new this thing is whoo there's a little bit of body roll in those turns ultimately it's a 20 year old car we're getting to the point where people buy this car more force of nostalgia than its actual performance the cool thing about this car is it has both it's on this fast as a modern sports car does buddy roll than the term not as precise but this is how these cars were back then you know when you drive all these modern cars you're so spoiled because if they just engineered everything so well but in a car like this little older it's a little spinner and that's just sort of the reality of these cars it's a different type of driving experience you know you get a little bit more Road for you close to the ground you feel everything you hear everything but it isn't as fast as a modern car you know and it isn't it around corners it isn't quite as tight now obviously there's modifications that you can do to make that happen but driving a stock example it this is it this is an interesting look into what you know the best sports cars were like back in the 90s and sort of how far it's come and it's come pretty far but this is still an enjoyable car to drive so that's the FDR x7 $50,000 may seem like a lot but to me this in the Toyota Supra were the best of those 90s Japanese sports cars and we all know that nice super turbos are selling for 60 70 80 thousand dollars in good shape admittedly this one is priced high but it's also probably the nicest of these you'll ever find a low mileage one owner r2 and right now the average asking price for an FDR x7 on auto trader is $28,000 with really nice ones starting to creep in to the 40s in the end I think this is one of those cars where we'll tell our kids that we remember when you could have had a perfect one for the price of a nice 3-series now on to the Doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling in my mind there's no dispute here this is one of the most beautiful cars ever made and it earns a perfect 10 out of 10 becoming just the fourth car I've reviewed to do so acceleration is good not amazing it does 0 to 60 in 5 seconds which gives it a 6 out of 10 handling is also good nice and sporty but not quite as precise as modern cars so it gets a 6 out of 10 cool factor is high especially with an ultra clean stock example like this one of these pulls up into cars and coffee and you can't help but get excited and it earns a seven of ten importance however is a little lower this car was simply the rx-7 s third generation in just one competitor in the world of 1990's Japanese sports cars it's cool but it didn't exactly blaze any trails and it earns a six out of ten still the weekend score stands at a strong 35 out of 50 placing it higher than basically any other car in its price range as for the daily categories starting with features the rx-7 is weak largely a function of the fact that it's nearly 25 years old and it earns only a three out of ten comfort is also poor the rx-7 has a rough ride and shockingly cramped driving position especially for the 1990s and it owns a three out of ten quality is also not great the interior materials are fine but not exactly nice with no high quality leather or stitching more importantly reliability is dubious and these rotary engines were famous for a few pricey issues and expensive upkeep and it earns a four out of ten next up is practicality and cargo volume is surprisingly good it has 17 cubic feet of space which would give it an amazing 5 but only two seats bumps that down to a 4 out of 10 finally valued a $50,000 asking price for this one is high especially when you consider it's a 255 horsepower twenty-three-year-old Mazda but I really do think this and the Supra will emerge as the collectibles from the era of 1990s Japanese sports cars and I think prices have a way to go for that reason it gets a 6 out of 10 bringing the total daily score to 20 out of 50 add it up and the total dug score is 55 out of 100 which interestingly ties the Honda s2000 I reviewed a couple of weeks ago the rx-7 has a higher weekend score mainly based on its appearance but high pricing and questionable reliability keep its daily score down and since this graph has gotten pretty small I've linked to a Google Doc below with the scores updated through the last video by different sized compartments on either side of the trunk just just barely different just need a little bitty different size compartments can also in this so this cars 31 are you saying

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 3,165,569

Rating: 4.8683028 out of 5

Keywords: mazda rx-7, rx-7, fd rx-7, mazda rx7, rx7, 1990s rx7, rx7 r2, mazda rx7 r2, mazda sports car, rx8, mazda rx-7 coupe, mazda rx, mazda rotary, rotary engine, rx-7 rotary, 1994 rx-7, mazda rx-7 fd, doug demuro, demuro

Id: lZgOhP_RMSM

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/stashtv]

90s RX-7 down, cool.

S2000 down, yup.

When is the Fairlady Z review coming? How about a 1997 Supra?

[u/EatSleepJeep]

"...if you're into this stuff you probably already know about it."

Making RX-7 owners sound like some weird fetish cult.

[u/f20]

Going the way of the MKIV Supra where clean examples just keep getting harder to find and more expensive, but they're both some of the best Japanese sport coupes of the '90s.

[u/blue_bomber697]

Love RX-7’s so much. Mazda has never made a better looking car. Had no idea this car had so many quirks though! Very unique cars for sure.

[u/Where_am_I_now]

Doug I'm not sure that's what a polar bear sounds like.

[u/Mif_]

Relieved Doug gave it a 10/10 for styling, anything less would have destroyed the credibility of Dougscore™.

[u/B0h1c4]

Isn't the "crazy wing V thing" in Mazda's current logo actually a "crazy M thing"? I always thought it was an M for Mazda.

About the headlights up without being on thing... I'm not sure if it's for maintenance or what, but it's useful to have that feature when the pop-up headlights stop working properly. Many years ago I had a 92 Eclipse that had this feature and I had to leave them up because one headlight got noticeably slower than the other and I figured it was bound to stop going up at all, so I just left them up.

[u/Errattik]

Such a beautiful car. I wish Mazda would re-release it with the exact same body style and just update what's under the hood.

[u/M0D3RNW4RR10R]

This is a manlier version of my Miata. Same color, a lot cooler, and I'm missing pop up headlights.