This is one of the more odd Mazda rotarycars.. no question...
After Mazda had sold their Rx3 and Rx4 for some years they decided to go after the American market for real!
What do you do then? You of course make a car that you think the Americans want! Or so Mazda did..

You put your biggest engine, not that it's big in anyway but still, the 13B.
Add an automatic transmissions, powersteering, AC and all the stuff that the Americans want..
The result is a big (for Mazda) and heavy car 1400kg. They did however put real brakes on the car, vented disks in the front and disks in the rear.

Sure enough the Americans hated the car... it did not sell well at all..

But in Japan, where you want to be like the Americans, it sold by the truckloads! Becoming car of the year and everything.

Why another Rx5 then? Most of you know that I got a free Rx5 78 a few years ago. Well I also became a father for the first time in 2005. I thought that that there would be time left to restor the Rx5 and take care of the family.. I could not have been more wrong.

So when I found this running one I thought that it would be better to buy that one and sell the 78. Ok, this was more expencive but what the hell, there was only a couple of hours to get it ready for the road!

The 78 car is as good as sold, not picked up yet.

This car is a 1977 model with automatic transmission, powerstering and aircondision - That still works!

I got all papers from the carinspection with it so I know for a fact that it has only done 67000km.

It must have been rustprotected from the start as the underside was in very good condision.

The ony thing missing was the headlight surronds that had been stolen in 99. I borrowed those from our other car untill I find a set.

The car last ran on the road in 99. According to the owner that we bought it from it had been stolen and Mazda could not find any new surrounds for the headlight so the insurancecompany bought the car.

From there it was sold and stored until the owner befor us bought it in 2005.
Now he neede to sell it and we were lucky that I called him even before he placed the add for it!

I had not actually driven an Rx5 before. Our old one only got a few small drives at home. I can understand that this was the most expencive car that Mazda had to offer. The ride is superb. It's very quiet and the autotrans works very nice.

I drove half the way home and Lena the rest. Afterall this is her car! She really liked it and said "It's like a normal car". I don't know what she means by that.......

When we got the car home I did some minor stuff to it.

There was some small rust that I fixed and a link to the vipers was broken so I had to fix that as well.

There will of course be a change of oils, coolant, plugs and filters as well.

Only some minor rustjob needed to get it running. There is some more but I'll fix that when we paint the car.

070609 : I have been using the Rx5 more than I wanted to the last weeks. Lena got hit in our 626 by a drunk guy in a BMW so we lost one of our daily drivers.

The other one has a bad wheelbearing so the Rx5 has done a few kilometers. I checked the fuleconsumtion because I thought that the fulemeter was falling quickley.... and it was 14.8l / 100km. Not really what you want but hey.. at least we have aircon! I bet that one uses a few liters!
This has been mostley hiway and using the aircon.

070703 : I made a trip visiting friends in Säffle, and Karlstad the other week. On my way home I stopped at Gellerasen racetrack to look at some historic racing (images in the events section).

The Rx5 ran fine all the way and I managed to get some better fuleconsumtion this time.. not much but still better. In Karlstad we took a few laps on the crusing that was organised by Wheels magazine. First time I did a proper cruise in this car... worked fine...

On the way home I noticed that the exhaustsound was getting louder... and yes... the rear muffler had done waht it could.
It looks as it has been opend before and I dont think it's the original Mazda muffler.
As my Rx7 is not running I borrowed that one and a few hours of welding I had myselfe a new one!

I managed to find a mint ownersmanual for the car! Almost to good to have in the car...
If anyone is intressted I have a French/German Rx5 owners manual for sale!

The last two pictures are from the "monday meet" with SSJ.

070816 : I took a trip to Scandinavian Raceway at Anderstorp the other day. The reason was that one of my old rotaryfriends from Denmark was there. He hade the pleasure of driving a Jordan F1 ! I had not seen him for a few years and the weather was good så I took the Rx5 down there.
Here are all the pictures I took during the afternoon and the way home.
I took small roads home, roads that I had never used before.
Rx5, a warm sundown, metal from the MP3 palyer... what could be better!?
The trip home took more than double the time... I had to stop so many times...