I've noticed cars that are built (manufactured date) in 12/1/1986 they were advertised as the 87 Mazda RX7. But wouldn't you still call it an 86? Just asking because i was watching an old commercial for a rx7 and they were selling 87 rx7 and it was september of 86. I would consider it an 86 rx7. my friend who has a rx7 and in the door it says 11/91 for the date it was made but says his rx7 is considered a 92. I say its a 91. Am I wrong?

 

I think pretty much all cars like that. Go to any dealership and you'll see nothing but 2010 cars.

 

Manufacturers can call a car any model year they want - the only restriction is there can only be 1 January 1st in the run designated a particular model year. By convention, new model year cars start to arrive for sale around the start of September, dated for the following calendar year - so for 1987 "model" year cars, their dates of manufacture are typically going to be 08/87 through 07 or 08/88. This follows the traditional cycle in the auto business of shutting down the lines at some point during July or August to allow for retooling, worker vacations, and retraining.

Manufacturer's typically depart from that convention for mid-year introductions of new models or updated ones. For example, the Ford Mustang was introduced as a 1964-1/2, although really all the cars were marked as 1965 model year cars. The early production cars are called the '64.5's because the car started manufacture in March of 1964, and went on sale in late-April-early May 64. Ford did make some changes to the car at the traditional August '64 changeover, (trim, lighting, engine options, electrical), but all the original cars are technically '65's, even though Mustang enthusiasts/collectors distinguish the first 120,000 or so pre-August cars as 64.5's. The 18+ month run of the first year Mustang production worked brilliantly for marketing - over 1,000,000 "65" Mustangs were sold - which I think might still hold as a record for single "year" model sales. More recently, Ford began selling 2010 Mustangs early this year in the States- the updated cars were not ready for 2009 traditional August/September changeover, and so there was a short run of 2009 Mustangs that for practical purposes are 2008's since no changes were made, but dealers and marketing, and the requirement of only one Jan 1 in a production run dictated a 2009 be available. Here in Canada, on the other hand, 2010 Mustangs only recently became available, months after US dealers got them - in this case, it was allowing dealers to time to sell off 2009 and 2008 inventory that dictated that the 2010's not be introduced early - I suspect Ford was using Canada, wih it's healthier economy, to dispose of hard-to-sell '09s in favour of having the '10s in the more recession-ravaged US market.
Marketing purposes also may be the main reason for playing with model year dates - I recall Nissan, at one point in the late 80's, beginning around January, to call all their cars the following calendar year model - as in, it was say January 1988, and they were calling their cars '89s - "Come to our dealers and see the '89's now!").

 

there was never a 1992 model year RX-7. Mazda sold all 1991's until there were no more. this continued even when the FD's were on the lot.

 

the car is whatever it is titled, if your car was made 6/86 and the title says 87 then you have a 87, if its 12/91 and its titled as a 91 thats what you got.

Now they go all over the place, I had a 2007 model year car in June 2006.

 

Here's some FC-specific info on build dates vs. model years from the FAQ:

Build dates by serial number:
Model year-----Production Date----Serial Number
1986--------------8/85 - 6/86------100001-200000
1987--------------6/86 - 7/87------500001-600000
1988-------------7/87 - 12/88-----600001-700000
1989------------12/88 - 12/89-----700001-800000
1990------------12/89 - 11-90-----800001-900000
1991--------------8/90 - 7/91------900001-950000
1992-------------8/92 - 12/92-----950001-999999

...and yes, there actually were 1992 model year FCs, just not imported into the U.S. I believe they were all Convertibles. If your friend's car is a 'Vert and was imported from somewhere outside the U.S., I'd say he may be right.

What I think is a bit odd with the FC is that the '88-90 model year cars continued to be built until very late in the year. Back then, it was highly unusual to go into a dealership after September or October and see brand new cars that were not dated for the next model year. I wonder why this was done.

 

some cars also just sit around, Back in like 03 or 04 I bought a Mazda 6 in September that was that year's car, I had leased it and could care less that it was not the next model year car.

I think it will change now, dealers are not carrying as much inventory and they are making less cars to keep the stock low.

 

I'd suspect it had to do with the changeover from S4 to S5; as in, they weren't ready to move to S5 production for the traditional summer changeover, so they delayed the '89's production/introduction until they either were ready, or the requirement of only one Jan. 1 in a model year run required them to end 88 production.

Edit: Or, it may have just been that they had surplus S4 engines and trim they wanted to use up.

 

That makes some sense for the '88 to '89 changeover, but why did Mazda do the same thing in 1989 and 1990?

 

?? Dunno; maybe to try and get traditional 12 month production runs out. Maybe because doing a short 6-7 month run to get back on track with a traditional late-summer intro of the next model year would make that year's sales look bad? Maybe all of the above and some other factor, combined with the fact RX-7's were produced in batches, rather than a dedicated, full-time production line? Since there were no significant changes to equipment or options on the S5's thoughout their 88-91 run (other than some limited run Japan-market cars, like the Infini IV), the model years are genuinely arbitrary in the case of S5 cars.

 

Mazda always claimed that they did not track RX-7 sales by model year, only by calendar year. Maybe the odd timing of the model year change had something to do with Mazda trying to align model years with calendar years, but I would think that would come at the expense of sales. For example, if I walked into a Mazda dealership in November of 1989 and the 1990s weren't available yet, I might be inclined to wait until they were. Or maybe just buy a 300ZX instead...

There were some semi-significant changes to options/trim in the S5 cars over the years. For example there was no GTUs in 1991 and hardly any were made in 1990. Airbags appeared in the 'Vert midway through the S5 run. You could no longer buy an RX-7 with manual crank windows in 1991. Harbor Blue paint was replaced by Brave Blue Mica in 1991, and the coupe's 15" wheel design changed in '91 too. Not exactly earth-shaking stuff, I'll admit, but enough to help distinguish the model years.