Valentine’s Day is almost upon us, and you know you have some romantic, steamy, or downright heartbreaking stories involving a JNC and a significant other. Maybe there was a date, relationship, or marriage that turned out particularly well (or ended in spectacularly bad fashion) because of your car. Now is the time to share your tales of love.
What’s your most romantic JNC story?
The most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “How should Mazda celebrate its 100 birthday?”
There are many ways to cap off a century but most of you wanted Mazda to celebrate its 100th birthday shindig by building some kind of car, whether it was BlitzPig‘s improved Mazda 3, banpei‘s rotary engine EV, Negishi no Keibajo‘s RX-Vision, Lee L‘s outrageous REPU suggestion.
As much as we’d like to see that happen, there were a few others that seem a bit more viable, like speedie‘s commercials touting Mazda’s achievements, dankan‘s anniversary edition colors, or Tom Westmacott‘s idea of an RX-7 restoration program.
It came down to a very close win. Daniel‘s wish that they never betray their ideals was straightforward and sincere, but Dave‘s divergence into fantasyland was so epic that he squeaked by with the victory.
Mazda will celebrate its 100th anniversary by shocking us with the announcement of a new rotary “motor” befitting the 21st century: it is spun by tiny electromagnets, which pulsate in sequence to keep the Dorito spinning, up to 15,000rpm without the use of oil or apex seals because the carbon fiber rotor “floats” inside the housing, lubricated by non-clumping graphite.
The asymmetrical movement of the rotors helps dissipate and equalize the inherently unstable dynamic forces of magnets, but that’s the beauty of it: Mazda has calculated that 6 rotors (no less) cancel out the harmonic frequencies that lead to unwanted vibrations, effectively reducing overall NVH by 78%. Without the need of heavy sound-deadening materials, the interior space opens up and the average vehicle weight is reduced by 45%.
Because the electromagnetic rotary motor make an equivalent of 500hp and 500 lb-ft of torque at stand still, a 6-speed drive-by-wire, simulated manual transmission (I KNOW!) is required to step down ALL DAT POWAR.
Where the “frunk” would’ve been in the new concept car is instead where the maze of step-down gears are, thus forcing Mazda’s engineers to make it RWD.
Due to the anticipated-but-basically-guaranteed massive commercial success, Mazda signs up for Le Mans, WRC, and IMSA all at the same time with homologated models to follow. Mazda continues to participate in the DPi class as a gesture of goodwill, but fills the podium each time, just to rub it in.
In a final nod to tradition, the new car is named…wait for it…Mazdaspeed RX-Cosmo3, soon to be followed by RX-Cosmo4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9—filling the compact coupe, large coupe, grand tourer, hatchback, sedan, wagon, and shooting brake categories. Mazda eschews the SUV category altogether—on principle.
Stunned and humbled by Mazda’s ingenuity, and in an effort to boost Japan’s collective optimism following its bubble burst in the early ’90s, Toyota and Honda each donates the use of their biggest factories—free for the next 10 years—in order to produce said vehicles, in exchange for licensing the technology to revive the Land Cruiser, both S800s, and the S2000, respectively. They, too, agree to discontinue all CUVs, on principle.
Last by not least (well, kind of least) Mitsubishi and Isuzu see the light and the error of their ways, and they convert their businesses to solely producing SEMA-conquering aftermarket parts for the new RX line.* **
*I’m making all this up.
** I’m sorry, too.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
My first and second cars were Honda Preludes, and I have been looking for another one. I searched daily for the right one and came across a manual in great condition, reasonable kms with rare leather seats and in the blue that my second car was in. I contacted the owner and it was an old lady who lived out in the sticks, it was a fair way and it was top dollar but it was the best condition one I had seen.
So my girlfriend and I traveled approximately three hours to the Australian town of Busselton, the directions we were given directed us to a shed on a farm property, where the owner of the car had taken it to do errands. We drove into town and waited for a call back and some hours later we got a call and could go see the car.
Well it was the old situation where the pictures of the car were about 10 years old, the car was the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever seen. From memory I cannot remember a car I’ve seen on the road in worse condition. Every panel had the paint chipping away with rust underneath, and all panels were scratched or dented, no badges (but the over polish was still there of course), the dash was cracked all over, the leather seats were torn like a werewolf went on a rampage inside the car, both door handles were snapped off, the immobilizer and the locks didn’t work, the car reeked of oil and sort of sung a shrill metallic song at over 4,000rpm, the owner had previously told me the timing belt had been changed but she of course meant the alternator belt and couldn’t tell me the last time the timing belt was changed, had zero service history, and at this point I found out, like every other Prelude I’ve ever gone to buy, that the old lady didn’t actually own the car and was selling the car on behalf of a young man (her grandson).
And somehow I still loved every second of driving it. I knew then and there that I needed to have another Prelude. The lady was pretty certain after travelling all day and spending an entire day waiting around I was going to buy it then and there and was fairly smug about the sale. I told her I wasn’t interested and I told her why.
It was now night time and we were worn out, and found the only place with beds to stay the night, It ended up being a really quaint old fashioned place with huge old trees all over, and a spa bath in the room. We went out for dinner but nothing was open since it was a small town, so we bought a whole bunch of junk food and hung out in our spa watching bad country TV and had a really good time. Being in a backward place with nothing but time can do good things for your relationship sometimes. And I suppose spontaneity helps with that too.
The next day we had a look around the town, it was old and very nice, we had breakfast and got back on the road. On the way home the lady called and told me in a sort of smarmy way that if I haggled she would have given me the car for much, much less. I told her she couldn’t have paid me to take that piece of shit off her hands. A couple of weeks later I got a call from the Police Department over there. The car had been stolen, so I guess she found another way to get rid of it.
My girlfriend and I are planning to go back for a weekend. Might even take the Prelude I just bought down there for a road trip.
When I was in high school I got in an accident while street racing some guy in a viper. It was the last straw for the government, so they kicked me out of the country, and I moved in with my father in Japan. While I lived there, I was introduced to drifting, and eventually started drifting my evo IX. I fell in love with a girl named Neela, and beat some dude named DK to seal our romantic fate.
I started dating a girl when the only two cars I owned were an AE86 with no AC or heat and an S30 with AC that would turn into heat 15 minutes into any drive and blew up its cooling system in front of her apartment.
She married me anyway (and still refuses to ride in any of my JNC’s.)
I actually started dating my girlfriend because my 86 GL10 overheated on the highway and we were stuck for an hour. I’ll let the readers tell their stories though.
I remember the date.
It was the 14th of January, 2018. My girlfriend was celebrating her birthday that day, so I treated her to a sunday drive to some museums in Manila.
The first stop was the National Museum, everything was going fine, and when it was time to move we went to look for another museum.
So, I remember also parking the car, shutting it off and getting out to ask for directions, when we got locked out of the vehicle.
It was okay with my SO, but not with the others around me, as one guy started recording as I was breaking into my car.
I thought I was done for. So, instead I had my sister and her boyfriend bring the extra key.
They got there after two hours, and then I just accomodated them for the ride.
We went to the seaside, eating 7-11 dinner, when my girlfriend told me..
“You know, I didn’t really wish for this, but you just slashed off an item in my bucketlist.”
So, yeah, getting locked out was part of her bucketlist.
We got locked out of the car during my SO’s 19th birthday.
I thought things were gonna be awkward but, well I never thought it was in her bucketlist to experience that.
Things just got awkward when a guy sitting in the trunk of his car started recording me trying to do something.
I still wonder to this day if he still has the video.
As for my girl? She still with me, and she misses the JNC.
She fell in love with it, because of the incident.