Intro from Colorado
01-01-09, 10:06 PM
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Intro from Colorado
Hi all,
I am the owner of a 1979 RX-7 which I have had since new, almost 30 years to the day.
When the RX-7s first came out, I was living in Houston, and the dealers were selling them for up to $14,000, first person in the door with cash. You could not even get one to test drive. I was looking at other options when a colleague told me that his brother-in-law had just bought a Honda Accord - which were also in demand, although not as outrageous as the RX-7s. The dealer sold Honda and Mazda, and was in Cape Girardeau, MO. So I called the dealer, who said he had five coming in, four already sold, and I could have the last one at list price, which was around $8600.
I figured that in the worst case, if I did not like the car, I could buy the car, drive it to Houston, and sell it at a profit. So I signed up for it, planning to pick it up in early January 1979.
As it happened, I had a trip out of the country on business. I came back via New York and St Louis. The next day, the weather was really bad - no flights - so I rode the Greyhound bus down to Cape Girardeau. I arrived at 4pm on Saturday, just before the dealership closed, and collected the car.
A few miles down the road I pulled off for dinner. As I got back on the highway, the back end of the car swung out wildly. I was about to conclude that it did not handle well, when I realised that the highway was covered in ice, and there was freezing rain coming down. I did the next 20 miles at about 25 miles an hour, in convoy with a few other cars. The truckers were roaring past, and we saw many of them in the ditches that evening, and the next morning. I finally found a motel, and stopped for the night. By the time I stopped, there was an inch of ice on the top rim of the pop-up headlight covers.
The next day I drove back to Houston, after the storm had moved out. I decided to keep the car, and the next year, I moved to Colorado, where driving in the mountains is a whole lot more fun than the Houston freeways.
So that's the story of how I became an RX-7 owner.
I am the owner of a 1979 RX-7 which I have had since new, almost 30 years to the day.
When the RX-7s first came out, I was living in Houston, and the dealers were selling them for up to $14,000, first person in the door with cash. You could not even get one to test drive. I was looking at other options when a colleague told me that his brother-in-law had just bought a Honda Accord - which were also in demand, although not as outrageous as the RX-7s. The dealer sold Honda and Mazda, and was in Cape Girardeau, MO. So I called the dealer, who said he had five coming in, four already sold, and I could have the last one at list price, which was around $8600.
I figured that in the worst case, if I did not like the car, I could buy the car, drive it to Houston, and sell it at a profit. So I signed up for it, planning to pick it up in early January 1979.
As it happened, I had a trip out of the country on business. I came back via New York and St Louis. The next day, the weather was really bad - no flights - so I rode the Greyhound bus down to Cape Girardeau. I arrived at 4pm on Saturday, just before the dealership closed, and collected the car.
A few miles down the road I pulled off for dinner. As I got back on the highway, the back end of the car swung out wildly. I was about to conclude that it did not handle well, when I realised that the highway was covered in ice, and there was freezing rain coming down. I did the next 20 miles at about 25 miles an hour, in convoy with a few other cars. The truckers were roaring past, and we saw many of them in the ditches that evening, and the next morning. I finally found a motel, and stopped for the night. By the time I stopped, there was an inch of ice on the top rim of the pop-up headlight covers.
The next day I drove back to Houston, after the storm had moved out. I decided to keep the car, and the next year, I moved to Colorado, where driving in the mountains is a whole lot more fun than the Houston freeways.
So that's the story of how I became an RX-7 owner.
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