YOU and your toys
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Jared’s RX-7 heaven by Jonathan Leask
D
ue to having a rotary engine the Mazda RX-7 has a distinctive sound. Jared Tubb’s RX-7 is even more distinctive because he built it himself. As a first-project car Jared picked up an RX-7 body and set about sculpting an end product essentially from scratch. “We stripped it all apart and had it redone. Nothing has been untouched,” Jared said. For over five years he, with help from his brother, Tony, toiled away on the car in their spare time, until it was finished last year. As well as being car enthusiasts the pair had the advantage of working in handy trades, with Jared an upholsterer and his brother a painter. “It made it more fun being able to do things yourself.” So impressed with the finished product, Jarred entered his RX-7 into the Fours and Rotaries Nationals last year and came away with two awards. “It got awarded best paintwork and best bodywork in show. “The most satisfying part about the car was that we were basically doing it all on the cheap. So doing as much of the work ourselves as we could so that the finished product was really ours.” It looks good and, depending on your opinion, its sound is horrible or music to the ears. But how does it drive? “It’s pretty nasty to drive and I don’t really take it out all that much ... it’s an every-nowand-then car.” It’s low to the ground and the distinctive sound of the engine also makes it a noisy ride. The Mazda RX-7 is renowned for its rotary engine, an internal combustion engine that works in a completely different way to the
Proud of his own product – Jared Tubb’s Mazda RX-7.
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conventional piston engine. In a piston engine, the same volume of space (the cylinder) alternately does four different jobs – intake, compression, combustion and exhaust. A rotary engine does these same four jobs, but each one happens in its own part of the housing with the rotation creating the iconic sound. With Jared’s RX-7 project now completed, he has already picked up his next project, a Toyota Trueno.
Right: Inside the completely re-done RX7 interior is all Jared’s handiwork.
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