Rotary reborn

Mazda is known in the automotive race for their Rotary driven vehicles. After nearly 30 years from its birth, Glen Powell of Chino Hills has fully restored his vintage contraption. Despite not being the original owner, Glen has treated her like a first born since day one of getting a grip of this historical ride. In 1980, Mazda priced this model for only $8,295 and today, it still holds a pretty sturdy value (depending on condition). The economy hatchback, 1.1liter R2 rotary engine, provides more than enough room and power to draw any enthusiast who wants to start out on a hobby project.

Here at Autohype, we give tribute to enthusiasts and welcome all classes of people, whether your a professional builder or the average neighborhood tuner that just loves to wrench on cars or purely admire their artwork. Its these type of projects that brings back the awe and excitement of taking an ordinary car and revive it to showroom appeal. With a chassis of nearly three decades old, you could easily be fooled that this car was in storage most of its life.

When we ran across Glen's 80' GS, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to expose this exceptional sculpture. The 1146cc, 2-rotor 12A engine provides just enough space of push to the pedal for Glen to cruise around town or a night away from the city. With an upgrade to Nikki 4-bbl carbs and Racing Beat muffler, headers, and gauge block, Glen is able to keep his car smog legal in California and add more power. It is common in the Southland region to have either one or the other..... to have both power and being "street legal" is rare these days due to California's strict laws on smog and emissions.

"I've loved the looks of the first-gen RX-7 ever since they first came out when I was in high school. I bought the car very used in 1989 as a daily driver. For the first few years it was my primary transportation; for the last ten, it's been a hobby car as I've slowly restored and upgraded it," says Glen.

A fully restored interior by way of the later version 84' FB series seats which were re-upholstered in grey and maroon ultrasuede with the rotor emblem motif. The original instrument panel was replaced with a 79'model (130mph speedo). Glen also got rid of the manual windows and switched them out to electrical power windows and added an FB series moon roof. With an Autometer 3-gauge cluster and digital compass, Glen is able to monitor both his engine's health and navigate his way through the city the old fashioned way. Outside, a fully restored straight stock body and factory K8 "Tornado Silver" paint was sprayed to bring life back to the car. A brand new set of factory custom 13" alloy waffle rims sealed the look for Glen.

Next on Glen's plate is to upgrade his alternator and to fully detail his engine compartment. A cold air intake and Racing Beat header/pre-silencer was recently purchased, which will shortly be installed, along with a pair of vintage 80's fog lights and power mirrors.

Special thanks and shoutouts go out to, "Jim Tanner & Jim Mederer at Racing Beat for years of excellent support. Daryl at Miracle Muffler in Anaheim for some tricky welding work. All the RX-7Club.com 1st-Gen Forum & West Forum gang, for great info and advice. Last but not least, my wife EJ, for gracefully letting me hog the garage for the last 10 years," concludes Glen.

With nearly most of the hard work out of the way, Glen is keeping the doors open to a few more upgrades throughout his car. Being a garage queen and weekend hobby, we're sure that there's always a reason to keep the wallet on this project open for both new and more innovative mod's. |