actually, MY '92 FC's do exist. in japan, not here. there were at least 150 "Final Version" convetibles that came out in august '92 since there were no FD convertibles, and production figures indicate 245 FC's made in MY '92

The FD3S production line started up in October 1991. Peter Farrell's famous No.7 was one of these pre-production line "prototypes", something like no. 20.

I agree you - the FD3S should be 1992 - 2002. We in the U.S. recognize the recent designated production years of the FD not available to us, yet we have a problem as we ascertain the FD's beginnings, especially since a '92 model did exist outside the the U.S. market. The reality that production began in the last quarter of '91 pretty much negates whatever the marketing bigshots at Mazda may say about calling it a '93 in the U.S.

Great idea, and I nominate you for answering all the newbie questions asking where the 1992 FDs are and whether they're better than '93, '94, or '95...

Cars produced and available in Fall of '92 in the U.S. were designated '93 model year for ANY manufacturer, not just Mazda. The FD was available in the spring of '92, if memory serves, however it is still considered to be part of the '93 run and the VIN reflects this. This applies to ANY manufacturer who releases a car earlier in the year. Production may have started in '91, but there were no FDs available for sale in the U.S. until 1992, which makes them all 1993s.

2nd gen, 1991-15648 1992-245 3rd gen 1991-975 1992-26654 1993-6801 1994-5962 1995-5202 1996-4762 1997-3556 1998-1423 1999-4151
1revn3rdgen you said there were no 2nd gens produced in 92. Actually there were 245.

This is interesting. I've only seen one 1993 FD built in 1993. All the others I've seen were built in early-mid 1992 (Jan 92- Aug 92). I wonder if Mazda shut the line down for a few months in late 1992?

Anyone have a 1993 FD with a LATE 1992 build date?

Interesting figures.. where did you get these numbers?

Thats it in a nutshell. For the USA cars, Mazda introduced them, and sold them, as a 93 model. It doesn't matter when they were made. Mazda called them a 93 model, so that's what they are in the USA. Case closed.

For other countries, the situation may be different.

production #'s have been published in brian long's RX-7 book, which was written with help and consent from mazda. also brian long lives in japan. it's got authority. just 'cuz we don't see 'em here in the 'states, doesn't mean they don't exist. there're a host of special editions in japan, and like i said, FC convertibles were produced into '92 for jdm, and FD's hit the showroom in late '91 as '91's. home markets usually get the cars earlier than anywhere else

maybe this analogy'll help. officially the Corvette ZR-1 hit the market in 1989, but nearly all of the '89 ZR-1s were relegated to the press and test fleet, and pretty much none of 'em were sold, but there exist many '89 ZR-1's and ZR-1 techanically lived form '89 to '95, even tho customer cars weren't delivered until '90, as 1990 models, with 1990 trims

Right, there was NO RX-7 in 1992 for the US. They were selling off '91 FC's throughout that year.

As for the Infini IV, Mazda brought a couple here for magazine testing before the FD came out - all tests for US magazines were done in Japanese right hand drive cars. The Infini IV color, badging and the rims are the real give-aways for the car. It had 16 inch versions of the BBS 'vert wheels with Infini logo center caps. The color was black/green which can be called either a very very very dark metallic green, or black with green metallic. The car had recaros, a momo corse steering wheel, no sound deadening, a re-designed exhaust, was slightly lower and had a front strut brace and offered no power/luxury amenities for weight savings. Nowhere on the car was "RX-7" visible...on the outside all you got was Infini badging.

i believe only one infini IV was brought over, under the directive of koby-san, and it was shipped here only for press purposes. i'm assuming it went back to mazda and probably got shipped back to japan. it's VERY VERY unlikely that it ended up being sold second hand to the public. as for the infini IV's color, i think the first run (there were 2 limited production runs of infini IV's) came only in black, but the second run was either in black or green. nevertheless, both runs of infini IV happened in '91, so they aren't part of the 245 '92 FC's

i will start by saying i didn't read every comment on this thread
but i have an FD i just picked up that i was looking to see when it turned 25 so i can import it legally
and i found out it was manufactured Nov 1991.... i like a lot of other people didn't think fds were make until late 92..
so does anyone know when the first fd rolled off the line....?

Was fd3s-100030 the first fd off the line if so that makes Oct 1991 the first

the JDM FD's started production october of 1991 (10/91) the US models started 12/28/1991. in the US we have this concept called model year, which defines the safety and emissions standards the car meets, and the FD's were 1993 models, even though the 1993 models were all made in 1991 and 1992.

there were around 100 preproduction US market FD's, as i've seen car #116, but when i ran the warranty history it didn't come up. i imagine there were some crash test cars, emissions test cars, maybe magazine test cars.

FD #116 was interesting, it was in a fenced yard at sevenstock one year, and it was a red base model, and it had different badging, it wasn't the round toilet seat badge, it had the square badge that Mazda got sued over.

Does anyone have a pic of the square mazda badge, and know why they got sued over it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda#Emblems

the FD never made it with those, but the 929 did

well in initial d it’s noted that keisuke has a 91 efini fd3s and i’ve looked for them but i can’t tell if they even really exist, so i’m not very sure

Necro bump, but, Yes. There were FDs from approx Oct 1991 here in Japan.

yea... the fd and fc were being made at the same time. wild stuff

Mazda's production line is really flexible, and if you dig deep it gets weirder than that. the 2018 and 2019 North American Mx5 production overlaps for about 10 days. the 2019 gets revised mechanically, so they are making two versions of the same car for the same market at the same time for no discernable reason...

I haven’t read all the comments but production of the rx7 fd started the last couple months of 91 and were consider 92 model year and
my fd is manufactured in 91 and is one of the first 200 off the line. So technically fd was made from 1992 - 2002 but only made and imported the American models 93-95

model year and calendar year are not the same thing :)

Pretty sure you've got your answer but at this point, but my FD is a LHD 93' which was built in Hiroshima spring of 92'. So safe to assume that a 92' JDM was built in 91'. :beer:

The year that wasn't
 

About 1000 of each were built in 1991 (last two months).

My understanding is that, in Japan, the year assigned to a particular car is the year it was first registered. So a 1991, build in 1991 and sold and registered in 1991, would be listed as a 1991. Likewise we see "2003" cars even though last production was in 2002.


There are data bases that give the actual production dates for individual JDM cars. I do not know if there is the equivalent for USDM/CDADM etc.

its not public, but Mazda has two.

the earliest car sold in North America was built 12/10/1991, JM1FD3324P0200046, its a CDM car too, Canadian. there are earlier cars, but they were pre-production. Mazda USA had P0200016, which was a red base model, with the square badges on it

That’s pretty neat, I had never seen an actual build date earlier then mine which is 01/92 build date. You’re only ten or so cars ahead of mine.