The stock FD has rake. I don't know the exact measurements but I think it's about an inch.

Possibly the angle of the picture makes the R2 appear to have more than it should. At any rate it's over priced and I wouldn't be a buyer at 35k.

PS you can clearly see the rake on the silver car or at least I can.

 

Nvm.

 

A dealership gives him a cool new car to review and he makes a $3000-$5000 per video. Meanwhile, the dealership has their product seen by millions of people in a short time. It's a good relationship. If Doug were to start saying bad things about the cars then that would translate negatively towards the sale of the car. There wouldn't be a lot of dealerships left to lend him cars if he were to say a lot of negative things. He would get bad reputation and his income would suffer drastically.

He recently did an Aston Martin review and talked about the key. The key for this Aston Martin has to be kept in a leather pouch on your belt and every time you want to start the car you have to unclip the leather pouch, open it, remove the key, insert the key in to the top of the centre console, and then push the start button. It was a big quirk and a very stupid procedure. However, he made it sound like an Aston Martin owner should look forward to this and relish the fact that they have to go through the extra steps because owning an Aston Martin, especially the one in the review, is only for the most special of people whom are of the highest class.

 

OK. I must be cross eyed, because you're never wrong and the car in the screenshot at the top of this thread looks to me like it has much more rake than the white low mile one you sold. Or the silver one. Or mine when I go outside and look at it. Or most of the ones I see at endless car meets around the SF Bay Area.

 

The angle of the pics can make a big difference. I always do my best to hide the rake and big wheel well spaces when taking pics because it's not attractive.

The next time I have a stock FD I'll measure the distance from the center of the fender to the pavement. Again I'm pretty sure it's an inch difference which is a decent amount of rake.

PS I'm wrong all the time and may even have this info wrong. I'm practically senile at 53 LOL

 

You are not wrong Fritz. A stock FD always has a bigger gap above the rear wheel. That's the way they were made. That's a fact!! Angles of pictures can sometimes hide it.

 

Yeah, stock FDs are super high in the rear. When you're used to seeing them dropped with flush fitment, it looks weird. But, that's how they were 100%.

 

The quickest way to end the debate of rake vs no rake is to look at an official Mazda ad. Unless it is a racing ad, then we are pretty much guaranteed the FD used is stock.

 

Wow, this debate is still going on?

Here. Photos from my stock car with 15,900 miles on it.

edit: and the board doesn't understand EXIF rotation info I see. Oh well. As you can see, Fritz is right: 1" difference in height in rear vs front fender to floor.

 

One thing you need to know about cars in ads are that they are notoriously lower than stock. They go for the marketing look. Stock FD’s had rake...but I only have experience with R models. My 95 did and my 93 does. Very much like the pics with measurements above.

 

A YouTube video interview with a guy from Hagerty on where the values for all 3 generations are and are going.

 

Yep someone mentioned an FD selling for 75k in one of the value threads and the info came from this video.

Interesting stuff, BUT, no way, no how will the 1st or 2nd gen EVER be worth more than an equal 3rd gen. In my opinion Hagerty is way off on that statement. Possibly my bias speaking and I should listen to an avid collector but I just don't see that even remotely clear in my crystal ball.

I do think the JDM thing is real and likely the most valuable FD in 50 years will be one of the later model RZs.

That said I also believe the auto world/collector world etc..... is really going to change drastically in the near future. Whether that takes values up or down who knows. I say enjoy driving your favorite sports car NOW rather than later. If you want to invest buy stocks if you like collecting cars/not investing then the car collector in me would look for the best 3rd gen I could find over any other car on the planet LOL.

PS This SSM R2 wouldn't be picked up by my collector radar either