I have an '81 GS. I am the original owner and took delivery on February 20, 1981 from Wantagh Mazda, Wantagh, NY. The car was always garaged and used only as a second fair weather car on Sundays, etc., until 1996. That year I retired it to my place in the Poconos of Pennsylvania where it has lived in the garage until now. Although unregistered and uninsured, I take it out about once a month to run it about a half hour to get everything up to temp and run all the electric stuff (lights, mirrors, wipers, etc.) to keep it all alive. In winter I fire it up in the garage about as often, as there is always snow which prevents the car from coming out. The car has never seen snow and barely seen rain.

The car (gold w/brown interior) has just under 60K miles on it and is dead stock and almost completely original. Aside from a water pump, the car has made it through 22 years on oil, coolant, belt, and hose changes and not much else. The brakes and clutch are untouched from day one. It runs and stops pretty much as well as it always did. All the paint is original and scratch-free and with a little effort I'm sure could be buffed back to almost new. Unfortunately there is a small dimple on top of the right front fender and a rather large door ding on the right door, but otherwise the body is perfect, as is the interior, except the headliner, which is starting to sag.

A friend of mine is very interested in the car, and I'm considering letting it go. I have been out of contact with RX7 clubs and owners for years, and have not kept current with RX7 happenings at all. My questions to you, the enlightened ones, are --

1. How unusual is this car in its originality and generally pristine condition, and therefore what is its desireability factor?

2. In light of the answer to question 1, could you place a ballpark figure on it as far as its value?

Anything you have to say would be appreciated.

 

Very unusual, but that ding is going to cost dearly...I'd ballpark it in the $3000 - $3500 range if it can still pass emissions...

 

I ould classify it as a very nice car that would be semi hard to come by. The thing is that they do kinda regularily come up on ebay in this type of condition. So yes they are out there, i mean if i wanted one i could just go right onto ebay and get one, they come up on ebay about 6-10 times a year, there was one a while ago with less than 10k miles on it. Plus total there was almost half a million made, so they are by no means "rare". the fact that most of us can find them in relativily good shape for 500-1000 bux does say something. if this was an old school rotary like an rx3 or r100 then i would say you have something that is worth some money. I would value this car at between 3 and 4000. You didnt tell us how many miles it has???

CJG

 

that is pretty hard to come by I havent seen an rx7 with less than 110 120,000 mi. on it I would go for 3,000

 

I'd pay you no more that 2500.

 

Points off for gold/brown, add points for complete originality. $3,000 tops.

 

that ding is the only thing... 4k...

 

Tom, just curious, are there preferred color combinations for first generation cars (as with Corvettes -- "all Vettes are red, the rest are mistakes"), or is the gold/brown objection a personal thing? Most people have liked it, and some have even said it's appropriate for the car because it's a "very 80's color."

As far as the ding and fender, over the years I've thought of having a good body place take care of them. But I still don't know which is worse, looking at the same ding for 15+ years, or no longer being able to claim the paint is all original.

BTW, I did also have a '73 RX3 wagon which was my daily driver from '73 till '87. In similar condition to the 7, the 3 would be more collectable? (I know I should have kept that thing.)

 

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that low miles on a '7 is NOT a good thing... to give ya an idea, I paid $900 for my '82 S. It has the spoiler package, Targa band, rear louvers, a beautiful interior and 75k miles. The body wasn't completely perfect but it was about the best one I've seen in a long time. Here in the PA region people don't really want these cars.. unless it's got a bowtie on the front or a fart cannon on the rear, no one appreciates it. Hope this helps..

--Danny

 

I'd keep the original paint--claiming original paint is a huge plus. No aftermarket paint can be as good and last as long as the factory paint (when taken care of properly). As for the RX3, I think the RX3 would have been more collectable. I rarely see RX3s in the states...

 

Most people here don't like brown interior. That being said, I've hated brown interior, but actually like TJ's white car with brown interior. It's an odd thing I guess - not sure why it is so

 

I liked it too .

~T.J.

 

Maya Gold is cool - in a Duran Duran sort of way. Personally, I like the brown interior, I think it leaves open more color combinations should you paint the car.

I'm not sure when you're talking about 20-25 year old cars, color makes much of a difference. Body, engine, interior - it's overall stock condition matters more than color.

Dents and dings hurt the value, because they'll need to be repaired, which removes the claim of original paint...

 

I have an 1984 GSL in very simalar condition, less the door ding. All origanal, origanla paint, head liner is not sagging tho.

I paid $3500.00 CND for it with a smile on my face to find one in the conditon it is in for that price. it had less 65000 miles on it.

The car is R7 (Percimon Orange) in colour with the Brown Interior. The interior acompanies the exterior colour perfectly. I think that is the key to interior colour.

Befor that I had a 1985 GSL L6 paint (I think) Light Blue simalr to ioTus car. This had the Grey interior looked great with the exterior colour.

The key is do the colours complement each other?

And can the end user live with the colour

RXTbone put it best:

Becides it is all baised on what the car is worth to the buyer in the long run

 

I don't know, I always thought Maya gold/brown looked fine and added some class to the look of the car. It's the color they used on the cover of the '81 sales brochure if I remember right (I'm too lazy to dig mine out), so apparently the marketing guys back then thought so also.

 

I LOVE MY BROWN INTERIOR!! Well i hated it at first but the more i looked it and looked at other peoples interior(especialy maron)i noticed the brown fades less. Just my opinion.

 

I love the black/grey interior, it matches with so many combos... But with a silver exterior (K3 I believe) and the grey/black, it's really a nice combo for me.. And I'm partial to the '84/'85 dash...
Jon

 

I feel a little more compelled now to like gold than I might have...

I was always partial to the steel blue and graphite greys (whatever the Mazda names are)...

 

While there are people who like the brown int/ gold (or brown) exterior, it's not nearly as sought-after as the reds, blues, silvers, blacks, and whites. Unless the buyer is partial to your color scheme this will effect the value of the car.
As for the dings, considering that the car is in mint condition otherwise and that a good polish can bring the original paint back to showroom condition, couldn't you have only the local damaged areas repainted after the repairs are done? I would think that as long as you had before/ after photos of the car that this wouldn't necessarily hurt the value to any great degree.
Another thing: Do you have all service records the and the original bill of sale? This will certainly help.
Consisering that at present the car is only worth about 4 grand even with all records and repairs, why not hang onto it for another 5 years? It's bound to be worth more by then, especially considering there will be far fewer 1st gens still on the road by then. This is already the case here in Canada so the same car might bring 5 grand here, but after converting back to US dollars you'd be no further ahead. In fact you'd lose money.

 

I would think that considering the good condition of the original paint, some local repair and repaint should not be too noticable. In the fact, the dimple and the ding, though on two different panels, are fairly close together, which might make paint blending easier if treated as one repaired area.

I do have all service records, original bill of sale, and window sticker.