the RXX-7.
With all the mechanical and cosmetic changes, it really isn't an RX-7 anymore, so I renamed it. The body shop that added the Tripoint fender flares told me that it looked "sort of like a 944 crossed with a Supra". In previous posts, I've mentioned that the car feels like it's powered by a V-8. So...the "RX-7" emblem on the back of the car now reads "RXX-7" and looks like it came from the factory that way. I'll share a little "in" joke with 1500 of my closest friends: 'XX' in Roman numerals is '20'. The new name is a hint as to what's under the hood.
True story: While I sorting some stuff in the truck down at VIR, I noticed a man and woman circling the car. The woman was looking at it with open admiration and a curiously satisfied sparkle to her eye. The man was regarding as he might some apparition from another dimension.
I walked over and said, "Hello".
The man responded with a terse, distracted, "Hi", and the woman said, "I _told_ my husband there was this really pretty car called an 'RXX-7', and he said, 'There's no such thing.', and he wouldn't believe me, so I made him come up here and look at it."
Her husband had that expression of suppressed unhappiness that connotes a man who is doubting his world view. He fixed me with the sort of look that must have been seen by the defendants a the Salem witch trials and said, "I didn't know that Mazda ever made something called an 'RXX-7."
The gauntlet was down.
I explained that a mild-mannered RX-7 convertible had been greatly modified, and that I had renamed the car in recognition of the extent of the changes.
A smile creased the old-timer's face, and the tension visibly left his shoulders.
"I knew Mazda never made no 'RXX-7'. I told her there was no such thing."
I replied, "There is, now."