AutoTrader Find of the Week: 1993 Mazda RX-7 is Properly Timeless

Most cars age terribly. Even the really good ones.

Enthusiasts love to toss around the term “timeless” for many beloved models, but the truth is that the vast majority of cars continue to look exactly like the era in which they were produced.

Even cars that continue to be “beautiful” in their own right can still look entirely out of place in a modern setting.

Most of the time, what people mean when they say “timeless” is that a model has become iconic — so pervasive and eternally relevant that its silhouette continues to be top of mind. The Jaguar E-Type, 1967 Ford Mustang, most eras of Porsche 911s, Ferrari F40, Lamborghini Countach, R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R — they all transcend their era of design because they’ve stayed so consistently relevant in pop culture and media. They get to be in every Gran Turismo video game forever.

But being an icon doesn’t necessarily mean any of them could sincerely trick your brain into thinking they were new cars on sale today. A Buick Grand National is an icon, but there is no way you could believe it was sold in any other time period than the mid-1980s.

Not many — if any — cars can legitimately pull off that “timeless” trick, though some are debatable like the E46 BMW M3, 2005 Ford GT, Ferrari F430, L322 Range Rover, or original Acura NSX. Also, the third-generation (or “FD”) Mazda RX-7.

As evidence, I submit this time capsule 1993 example being offered for sale through McLaren Vancouver and listed on AutoTrader. It has a full history of service records as kept by its original single owner, and it has never been modified. It’s no trailer queen or museum piece, though. With just a smidge under 60,000 km, this car is a driver and a survivor.

If you’re reading this, you know the table stakes of the FD RX-7. It has a weight of roughly 1,270 kg (2,800 lb), which is distributed in an almost perfect 50/50 ratio. Under the hood is the peculiar and wonderful 13B REW 1.3-litre rotary engine fitted with sequential twin turbos. It may only be good for 255 horsepower, but the combination of chassis tuning and power delivery was enough to give the supercars of its day a run for their money.

These cars were known for being fragile and finicky. Lightweight materials meant they were not for the careless. And the maintenance-demanding rotary engine meant they were not for the ignorant. Most everybody who didn’t fall into one of those categories modified the living hell out of them because they’re a really great platform to modify. Also, The Fast and The Furious.

This one, however, is as bone stock as they come, which is practically a unicorn in the RX-7 world.

Rarer still is that this is an original Canadian car. You can tell by the VIN. U.S. market cars are marked FD331, whereas Canadian cars are FD332.

Mazda claims it sold about 13,879 FD RX-7s in North America — though strangely, those aren’t delineated by country, despite the unique VIN coding.

A good rule of thumb is that about 10 per cent of North American stock is earmarked for the Canadian market, so say there were about 1,400 Canadian FD RX-7s ever. About 22 per cent of all FD RX-7s were painted this car’s colour of “Montego Blue” (red was by far the most common). So this is likely at maximumone of roughly 300 cars like it ever sold in Canada.

As a Touring model, this RX-7 received the bespoke Bose Wave Stereo sound system from the factory. Sure, it eats up a lot of cargo space, but man, it’s so friggin’ cool. Also included on the Touring were cruise control, a sunroof, fog lights, and a rear wiper. Mercifully, one option not selected was the automatic transmission. This RX-7 boasts the original five-speed manual box.

These options are all dead giveaways of the era in which this car was built and sold. You can’t call a CD player in the trunk anything other than retro. Heck, I would submit that even the rotary engine (which I love) is an idea whose time has long since come and gone.

No car truly stays modern forever. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's dated either. Blue jeans are outdated technology with features you would never include in a modern product. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still blend right in with modern fashion. They’re still relevant. And timelessness is nothing if not enduring relevance.

McLaren is asking $78,888 for this car, which is a bit of a price hike from its $32,850 MSRP in 1993 (even if you calculate for inflation). But a car like this simply doesn’t come along all that often. This is a really rare example of an already rare car. And because it’s a truly timeless icon, I can’t imagine an $80,000 investment on a 100 per cent original FD RX-7 depreciating anytime soon.

Just remember to fill it up with oil every third gas fill-up.

Apex seals. They’ll get ‘ya.