rotorhoe

Introducing the newest member to the rotary international auckland, in the form of a super project Mazda Rx2 Coupe straight outta somewhere near Compton but might take a while in the LA traffic.

Back in February there was slight intoxication involved when this little red coupe showed up on a Facebook group, and thought 'yes this could be a nice daily'.

Not overly reasonable considering it was in LA, and there was no garage space available, but no amount of sense-talking could stop the purchase and after being told our Mexican mate would sell it to another guy for double, I taught him a lesson by sending him money, chucked Stephen's RX7 out in the rain, and arranged shipment.

Supposedly from the Arizona desert (yet with several crowbar dents around main entrance points) it has survived hot sun, a brick through the windscreen, and a seemingly nasty break up thanks to Jessica being a tramp and a too-timer:

As far as we know it’s a 1973 RX2 S1/S2, with a poorly pulled apart factory 12a twin dizzy which fascinatingly was resting on the crossmember as an engine bracket, surviving a bumpy boat ride and several tow trucks.

The list of what it has is far shorter than what it needs as it included the seats, engine and auto gearbox, couple of bits of chrome, old mates dad's truck rear view mirror, half of the Arizona desert in the doors, and a creepy Christmas doll decoration.

Sorted:

• Thankfully don't have to invest in a paint job, as Jessica's ex has done the custom airbrushing.
• Got an extra windscreen as sadly the brick shattered the one in it.

Plans:

• Not sure of engine yet as deciding between keeping original or moving to a 13B.
• Received an upholstery quote so that will be instead be mostly done by Rotorhoe's hobby shop.
• Widened steels, slam as per rules, get on road with guidance of supertrapp and jillyz music (cost effective as no radio required)

Your kind thoughts and sympathy are appreciated

MK2 UPDEIGHT08

These past few weeks have been a mixture of excitement, confusion, and overall joy as cosmetic restoration of lil 808 continues.

The pictures sum it up but for those who prefer to read I'll attempt to explain how I went on a feel trip completing this just in time for Leadfoot & REunion...

Inspiration began:

Became a proud owner of a Mazda Japan chrome eyebrow (to complete the top chrome). Massive thanks to Craig OLDMAZ

Most of the parts to complete it: boot spoiler, fender mirrors from Rtid, lowering blocks from Stephen rot808, and nuts from Scotty BRDFLU and my fish flag from the Bosozoku at Daikoku Futo PA

I also received a pair of lowering springs from my parents. So in my mind I thought "sweet as! chuck the wheels on, chuck the spoiler on, fit the springs and blocks, put the fender mirrors on and good to go!" however...

Firstly, I looked closely and noticed my boot wasn't flush to the sides so would provide an uneven base for a spoiler. This required a day of gentle persuasion (hammering shit out of it) and soft speaking (cursing wildly).

Ok boot was sitting right now so I booked in to get a warrant, and booked in to get the spoiler shaped by Paul Weir... 

I started it up, very excited as hadn't heard it in a few months and went to leave the garage to get to my warrant in time, but the problem was just that. I couldn't leave the garage. I ran upstairs to get Dad and what happened next was one of my fondest memories regardless of the situation. Dad just kept trying to move it out by doing burnouts on the garage floor filling the house with smoke. The warrant was out of the question but the memory made up for it. Found out later in the day my front wheels pushed hard against the brakes and were completely stiff!

So I got my warrant, and I got the first part of the spoiler shaping done by Paul, all was going to plan!

Until I put the lowering springs in.

Note: if you buy a rotary, chances are the previous owner has already cut your "standard" springs by at least 1 inch.

My way of finding this out was putting in my new lowered springs, and looking in horror at the tape measure that stated I had in fact raised the car by 20mm.

So off they went to Christchurch on overnight delivery last Wednesday, and returned back to me on the Friday morning, impressive.

Meanwhile as all this is happening, the fender mirror springs are being shipped from Thailand (expected delivery of 3 days took 3 weeks), we spent more time with Paul fixing up spoiler number 2 for Rod Millen's RX3 that I picked up halfway to Hahei, and the lowering blocks were getting reshaped from Dad due to a whacky centre hole.

So yes, the drama is (hopefully) over for now, unfortunately can't get the mirrors on in time but have made that priority for weeks after REunion.

Thanks to Stephen & Paul Weir we got the wheels on nicely, the boot sitting flush, the spoiler shaped in time, and the lowering springs and blocks in ready for it's unveil at Leadfoot Festival. (let's also mention the 4 hours I spent cleaning, polishing, and auto-soling to have it heavy rain on the drive home)

And here are the pictures of the process involved:

Shaping the spoiler to fit

Fitting Rod Millen's spoiler

Paul Weir fiberglassing Rod's spoiler

Bare bum before

Rod's spoiler (to be painted and stickered for Leadfoot Festival)

My spoiler fitted

20mm higher than before

The ideal low, thanks to Stephen for risking your nose for this shot

So that's all for the next few weeks! Should be at Caffeine and Classics this weekend, Leadfoot Festival next weekend, and REunion the weekend following! ありがとう

Umm you forgot the most important pic...

Project 1.0 is slowly getting underway, after the 3 month escape to Asia...

Part of this post I want to dedicate to one of the coolest dudes we met, Rtid. A mixture of instagram and facebook conversations utilising good old google translate meant that we roughly organised to meet at a cafe in Northern Thailand with him and his 808.

He mentioned that there could be a few tourists and he wouldn't know who we were, but the fact that 1) he arrived in the 808 I pined over for months and 2) we were the only ones running away from our coffee to see it, meant we found each other pretty easy. 

I can say this is easily one of the coolest examples of an 808 I have ever seen, and it is a park everywhere, anywhere daily driver!

Rtid is a hilarious and talented guy who many may know from his now famous art shirts, "RX3 or 808 Thailand", or the fact he basically runs Lampang Retro Car club. 

My favourite conversation was pointing to his fender mirrors, trying to explain I was in the market for some. Giving that making dinner plans for later took over 20 minutes, you can imagine how long it took to explain about mirrors. I finally find some Wi-Fi and show him a picture to which he delightfully exclaims "OH Celica ta22 mirrors! I have!"

So I proudly own some very well travelled Celica fender mirrors, along with some of the rad shirts he designs.

Yes the mirrors made it flawlessly through 6 more flights and numerous trains and buses in my bag, checked by a custom official at Narita airport who asked where from and was super excited when I mentioned they were for a Matsuda.

This other part I want to dedicate a huge shout out to Paul Weir for dedicating huge amounts of time and effort into creating some wild wheels for the new style. For some reason I felt like the parts on the car should have a meaning, so this time the colour reflected the late 80's colour scheme Rod Millen ran for his Ashley Forest FC RX7

I told myself 2 years ago that once the car was done, I would never make it a project again.

So now marks the beginning of the process to complete the car and hopefully after round 2, never make it a project again.

Two weeks of MK2's

Part 1: To start the wild ride, I accidentally won an auction for SSR Mk2s. I was sure that I would be outbid, and placed the bid as a reminder to myself about the auction, but sure enough after 10,000,000,000 refreshes nobody outbid me and suddenly I owned these awesome wheels... in Japan. 

With a huge thanks to Jesse Streeter we discussed the cheapest option of around an 8 week delivery so while I was thinking of clever ways to hide their arrival through employing Karl, these sneaky sneakers were on their way for an earlier 6 week delivery.

Down low, too slow

Found some neat centre caps, and spent a few hours cleaning them up and snapping the rusty bolts out of the wheels.

Part two: After 3.5 years (and many assignments relating to marketing motorsport events in NZ) I got to take place in Davidson Graduation Mk2. The super special thank you must go to Rodney for flying down to see me walk briskly across Aotea stage.

RX3, Mk2 graduation, Mk2 wheels, Ari Catenen

Part three: Really was no better way to celebrate leaving education then to go to Japan, for my Mk2 visit. rot808 and I are off on our Asian Adventure, hopefully finding our way to all the RX3 brothers and cousins. 

To be continued...

Pics will be on my flickr (8:08 Photography) https://www.flickr.com/photos/motoreligion or instagram (theamyable)