Investigation

May 23rd, 2015

It's finally the weekend over here, so I decided to take some time and clean the car.  Autorama left it in such a mess that I couldn't wait to wash it.  I also wanted to look into whether or not it was leaking oil (it's not!) and find out as much about my new car as I could.

^ Last night I did some light painting, now that the car was back home.  This is from a 30 second exposure and me running around with my iPhone.  Here are our cars in the morning:

It's amazing how much bigger the RX7 feels when you're driving it, but how similar in size they both are.  The AZ1's roof line only sits about 1" lower.

^ Good stickers to have.  Here's a better shot of the engine bay:

There is so much room behind it!

^ Close up of the engine.  It goes so far in that I can't even find the exhaust manifold or turbo.  I bet those are easier to get to from the hatches behind the seats.

Is it really a Mazdaspeed??  I have a feeling it used to be a base model, and someone replaced the hood, front bumper, wing, exhaust, and just painted the side skirts.  But then, isn't that just what Mazda did too?

^ Nice little factory touch.  It doesn't have any emblems or logos on the back, so this lets people know what the car is.

I took a better picture of the interior.  It's quite cozy!  I love it.  But I still want to move the center console:

The boost gauge placement is hidden by my knee, so I definitely want to move that.  The top gauge is a volt meter, which is always helpful to have.  My plan is to do the same as the guy in New York and relocate the vertical HVAC controls to be horizontal where the radio is.  The odd mini-disc head unit came with a remote control, so I can hide that thing wherever.  Opening up that area will be great for leg room.

^ A sticker inside the door shows the stock wheel size.  This made me curious so I started cleaning the baby TE37s.

When I saw this, it was a total shock!  I thought the car had 14's all around, but to my surprise, it's staggered!  Fronts are 14x5's and rears are 15x6's.  Because racecar!

A neighborhood cat came by and was really interested in the AZ1.  So curious!

Well, I ran out of time this weekend and didn't actually accomplish anything I wanted to on the car, so I'll start that soon.

What's it like?

May 21st, 2015

Today marks exactly 4 months since I bought the car.  But ok ok, what's it like to drive, you ask??  Let me explain as best I can.

IT'S OVER 9000!!!  Yea, the redline is 9k, and it sounds amazing.  The car takes a while to warm up, but once you get that turbo spooling, it runs very smoothly and sounds like a little racecar.  With only 63hp, I didn't expect it to be as fast as it is.  There's a noticeable surge of power when the turbo comes on, but it's very smooth.

The handling and steering feel is what I love about this car the most.  The MR2 was one of the best cars I've driven, but the Autozam's connection between driver and road is next-level.  It's so light and nimble that you can dive into a corner at almost any speed, and just sort it out as you exit.  I'm finding it tends to understeer a bit, but that might be caused by the insanely small tires, or that there isn't any weight up front.

You can't really tell by this photo, but the engine is way far forward.  There's almost enough room for another engine behind it!  This gives the feeling that most of the weight is around the driver.

The steering is interesting.  From all the videos I've seen (from Best Motoring to Matt Farah's test drive) they've all talked about how touchy the steering is.  It's not AS touchy as I expected, but very sharp, and there's a special "range" of immediate sharpness.  If your steering wheel is straight forward, a turn about 15 degrees in either direction seems to be all you need to take 90% of the turns.  That range is so precise and quick, too.  Beyond that 15 degree range, it seems like a normal car.

How do you get in?  Take one step in with your left leg, sit your butt on the seat, shimmy your left foot under the steering wheel, then lift your right foot over the door sill.  It's easier than you'd think.  It's a tiny car, but what I didn't expect was how compact all the controls are inside.  The steering wheel touches your knees, and the center console surround piece where the shifter is touches the other side of your thigh.

The gas pedal is left of the center of the steering wheel, probably to make room for the right front tire, which means the pedals are very close together.  It doesn't have enough room for a "rest pedal" to the left of the clutch, so you have to bring your foot back closer to you, which makes things interesting when you have to shift into 5th gear.  I'll take a photo of this, but imagine putting the shift knob completely under your leg, behind your knee.  That's 5th gear.

Driving on the highway back from Petone was no problem.  It had plenty of power to get up to 100km/h (62mph) and felt very stable in whatever wind there was.  I even rolled up the windows (you can reach the passenger-side roller without even leaning over much) and it all became quite peaceful inside.  Shift knob under my knee was annoying, but I have some plans to change this soon.  Overall, the Autozam AZ1 has exceeded my expectations, and I couldn't be happier.  I'll give it a good clean this weekend and post more photos/videos.

Japan!

AUTOSAM!!!

May 20th, 2015

The time has finally come!!!  Around 10am I was wondering whether or not to call up Jeff and pitch some ideas to hopefully get the car finished, but as I looked down at the phone, it rang!  It was Jeff.  The car was ready.  O_O

We drove up to Petone and met up with him once again.  Apparently the "tire rubbing on full-lock" that AA mentioned in their inspection.. Jeff couldn't find at all.  He even had AA test it out again, and after nothing rubbed, they'd decided it was finally time to hand the car off.

Jeff gave me a paper to take down to VTNZ and get some brand new plates.

There is a good chance this may be the only AZ1 in the country.  When I called later to put it on my insurance, nothing came up in their system.  Exciting!

This is all new to me.  I've never imported anything or gone through this whole process, but it seemed to be pretty simple in New Zealand.  With compliance complete, all I needed to do was register it and get a warrant of fitness (which I still need to do).

^ Jeff puts the new plates on the car.  The only thing left to do was "extract some cash."  The bill from Autorama was way higher than I expected.  Here's how it broke down:

AA Compliance and MR2A fee - $404
Auto-liv Seatbelt Installed - $160
Wheel Alignment - $69
Repair Certificate - $463

For a grand total of $1261.32.  It's an old car and it needed a little work, so I understand... but that's a bit ridiculous.  This brings the total cost of the car, from purchase in Japan to on-the-road in New Zealand, to $17,650.  It's just my experience, so I'm sure this isn't normal, but I wanted to share as much info as possible.

SO HAPPY!  Just sitting in it felt amazing, but then I started it up.  SUCH A COOL SOUND!  It's very similar to an MR2 turbo.  I gave Jenn a ride out of Autorama to the RX7.  Flappy doors!

Of course they gave it to me with an empty tank, so we headed off in search of a gas station.

Almost immediately it was apparent that we couldn't sneak around unnoticed.  A truck actually slowed down and the people inside did double-takes.

All gassed up and ready to cruise the 25-30min back to Miramar.  What's it like to drive?  I'll talk about THAT in the next post!

Bruce Thomson Motor Bodies

May 18th, 2015

Ok, I'm getting impatient and the lack of any urgency to get this car on the road is driving me a bit crazy.  I gave Jeff a call this morning and he said all the repairs were complete, but he still needed to look into why the front tires are rubbing.  He said I would need to pay the panel-beater shop for the repairs though, so we drove out to Petone to take care of it.

Jenn hadn't seen it in person, so it was a good chance to drop by and show her.  She couldn't stop laughing!  Jeff sent us down the road to see Richard at Bruce Thomson Motor Bodies to pay for all the repairs.  The car looks really great, and they did an awesome job removing all the rust and protective-coating it.  Richard said within an hour and a half of the car sitting in front of his shop, about 6 people came by to tell him all about it.  The AZ1 is already building a reputation!

The bad news is that is was a lot more expensive to fix than I expected.  The bill from the repair shop was $1733, which brings up the total costs of the car to $16,389, not including whatever Jeff's fees are.  Quite the expensive toy.

The impression I got from Jeff was that the car could potentially need new tires, new rims, modification to the steering, or who knows what else.  And it doesn't sound like I'll have it tomorrow, or even this week.  Bummed.

Update from Jeff

May 6th, 2015

Jeff called me this morning to fill me in on what his engineer said is needed on the car.

The floor panel was the obvious one, but there is apparently also a lot of surface rust all around.  The rear panel needs to be sandblasted and painted, some mounts around the headlights, and under the front fenders as well.  It doesn't sound like he needs to change the tires, so at least that's a relief.

He booked it in to be worked on and expects that it'll be ready by the end of next week (I'm guessing the week after).  The estimate from his engineer is $1300, and after compliance and all the rest, the total will be roughly $2000.  A bit more than I expected, but here's hoping it all goes smoothly and I can take the AZ1 home soon!