Ryan, the link!

(inside thing, he knows what I mean)

Verts had the Windblocker, yeah that was an industry first. I can't remmember the article I read that said it either. But, I do remmember the article saying that companies such as porsche started copying the design shortly afterwards. The verts hard targa section to fix the soft convertable problem that made the roof suck upwards at highway speeds. Not sure if that was a first but there sure weren't many convertable cars that had something like that at the time. Verts GLASS rear window. To this day there are still brand new convertable cars from other manufacturers that are being made that have cheesy plastice rear windows. There may be more that have real glass now, but back then I think the rx7 was the first with it.

To some buyers these items were the factors that made them buy the rx7 'vert over the competition.

hmm.. what is the vert windblocker? someone have a pic? i dont own a vert... :(

The windblocker was a panel that flipped up behind the occupants heads and prevented the wind from hitting your neck. You see them nowadays on most convertables, mercedes and porches windblockers are like a mesh type design. The Rx7's was a plastic board.

The 2nd gen may have been the first car that was built with a convertable version planned from the start. As opposed to most cars that were designed as coupes and the vert was an afterthought hacked up coupe.

The FC is the only car I know of from it's time with the AAS that has a anti squat feature. And help keeps the car level in the corners.

dont know if these count..but...

Mazda RX7s are the only cars with the redline "buzzers" in them. Since the rotary engine does not have a true redline, a buzzer was installed so peeps driving it would know they were in danger of blowing the motors. Unlike cylinder motors that when they hit redline they discontinue making HP and the car will slow down and blow up. Rotary engines technically would keep going until they blew up.

One distinctive feature is the location of the alternator? Always dead center in the engine bay!

According to the Top Gear FC review the rpm buzzer was telling you its time to shift up.

yeah, i did not know that the buzzer was waring you that it was fixin' to blow, i thought it was saying something more like "whenever you're ready".

Sorry, but thats wrong. RX-7's came from the factory with a rev-limitter, as with all cars. Its at 7800 on s4's and 8800 (I think) on s5's.
The 2nd gen was the first car to have rear-steer (DTSS) and was the first car to have variable intake timing. I believe it was also the first to have variable length intake runners (on s5).

i could have swore i've read on here that the FC does not have a rev limiter. I have not tryed to go above 8800 RPM's so i can't say for shure though.

Trust me, it has a rev limitter. First of all, a car company would never allow a car not to have one because people would over-rev it and blow the engine, giving the car a bad name. Also, I have hit it before on a missed shift.

Chuck Norris does not love Raymond... Wait wrong interesting fact!

The FC's low coefficient of drag is still rather good even for today's standards. The sport package improved on it even further with it's oil pan guard, spats in front of the rear wheels, and small spoiler.

the fc does resemble the porsche but in a wide body concept take a look at the fenders and quarters and see a 30+mm wider body panel what about the rear independant suspension and being rear wheel drive wasnt the rx7 the first if not then forget i said anything lol

The FC's Coefficent of Drag is 0.31 for regular models, while the "sport aero" models came down to 0.29

The 2005 Corvette's CoD is 0.28

0.01 CoD difference from one of the most aerodynamic cars in our current time, is EXTREME!


Please note, the Mitsubishi Evolution (one of the most dominant turbo sport compacts of our day..) uses a TWIN-SCROLL TURBOCHARGER. Bwahaha.

A redline a day keeps the mechanics away!

They're not just starting to implement that. Mazda was an early player but both fixed and variable resonant tuning on intake manifolds have been on production cars for a long time.

Name one similarly aged, similarly priced car with a better interior. If you think the FC's interior is that bad, you probably haven't been in many cheap 80's cars...

Good for the FC's age and price, but it's been very common for a long time. S5's had it too.

Mazda actually patented the Convertible's windblocker. :)

The 2nd Gen wasn't designed with a convertible version planned from the start. There was considerable internal resistance to the idea and design didn't start until after the coupe was released in Japan (1985). It came out over two years into production remember.

Ah, yeah it does. It's clearly marked on the tacho...

Only from the 1996 Evo 4, but the Toyota MR2 Turbo used one from 1989-98.

two stroke.

NZConvertible is correct!
 

Myth!

Here is the well documented history. The project manager that made that particular bad decision was ultimately taken off the project and the rx7 project was reassigned to a manager that was a vert enthusiast.

The original manager was so anti-convertible that he wanted to assure that a vert could never be derived from the 2gen RX7 design. That bias ultimately cost him his job.

The 2nd gen was specifically designed to NOT be amenable to creating a vert. The doors were designed with an enclosed window. Any coupe designed to be produced as a vert is designed with door windows that do not have a window rim; ie the window weatherstrip is on the roof, not on a rim on the door. Why? Because the door is one of the most expensive parts on a car, both in the design work and the manufacturing process. Designing a new door for the vert added greatly to the cost of the project, which is reflected in the cost of the verts. Also, the design of coupe with rimless doors yields a body structure that may more easily be used as a vert. Correcting these structural limitations caused the initial vert concept to be very heavy. That led to the program to shave weight in expensive ways, such as the aluminum hood, using the turbo 4pot rotors that are aluminum, expensive and very light, the aluminum rimmed spare tire, etc. The fact that the 2gen rx7 coupe has enclosed windows show that little bit of history.

You may also have heard that the verts were produced on the same production line as the coupes. That statement is often made to support the erroneous claim that the vert was intended from the start. Again, myth, but with just enough truth to sound plausible.

The verts chassis was produced on a parallel production line, as the basic floor plan and structure was so different. After the chassis was built, the vert line ended and the vert chassis was merged into the regular production line for the install of the rest of the interior, the driveline and other major mechanical components.

FWIW, I love my vert. :cool:

How about the cars like the MGB and the Triumph Spitfire, they were convertibles from the start that were then turned into coupes later on in life (MGB GT, GT6). Don't those count as cars with a convertible version planned from the start, since that was the only plan?

As pointed out before, FALSE. There is a mechanical limit to the speed of the engine. A stock engine, with stock rotors, will flex the eccentric shaft, and the corners of the rotor will make contact with the irons, destroying both. It takes work to get a rotary engine to rev safely and reliably to 12k+ RPM. A stock engine may do it, but it won't do it for long, or do it safely. Also, more importantly, the stock flywheel isn't rated for extreme RPMs. 8000-9000 RPM is the safe limit for the stock flywheel/clutch. Go beyond that, and you start running a significantly increased risk of a flywheel explosion. A flywheel exploding has similar power to a hand grenade exploding. It will easily take your feet off.

*shrug* My Subaru is about the same. It's a bit offset, but no more difficult to access.

-=Russ=-

Ha no body has mentioned the light weight aluminum jack. Most of the jacks I have seen with other cars are either absurdly heavy or scarily weak.

Yes, dude I'm in cali also...yeah I get questions all the time too. I dont know but i guess alot of people that hate rotarys are in LA. But then again, I guess your right saying most people fear anything with a rotary motor in it, I agree 100%. But there are random people that roll up next to me and say hey nice car or (armo voice)that shit is tight bro!!(armo voice) haha thats a great one.

i like the uniqueness...its pretty rare i see a 7 that isnt mine...and i look

yeah 7's are really rare here. when i had the engine still in mine, i had one out of 3 7's on the road in my town.

one was barely running, one was running nice but the owner had raised the ride height at least 4 inches, and the other was mine.

now mine has no engine, the high riding one was rolled while the moron took it off-raoding, and the other was smashed into a tree.