I was at the A's/Giants baseball game on Friday night (go A's!) and there was a shiny red RX-8 in the gravel expansion parking lot on the south side of the stadium. I guess they were part of the whole "RX8Live.com" crew. We chased them down thinking that somehow the driver had gotten delivery of a new one, but then they told us that it was actually a pre-preduction model.

Looks good in person (first time I've actually seen it not on my computer or in a movie), especially the front. It was definitely tight in back leg-room wise, but I'm 6' 2" and I had adjusted the front seat to fit me.

I got to rev it up a bit and, as others have said, it's pretty darn quiet.

I'm hoping the car will get on the S-plan pricing this year...otherwise I may have to wait for the '05 model.

- Matt

You will be waiting for a '05 model. There are no specials for this car except the graduation deal.

I wouldn't worry about the lack of sounds of power - just the lack of power. Right? I think it's a Mazda thing. My MX-6 was so quiet just sitting there idling, that you had to actually look at the gages or something to tell if the engine was on. Now, I'm not in any way saying that the MX-6 is equal in any way to an RX-8, but it is a Mazda with a pretty decent V6. The innards came out of the catalytic converter and so it sounds now like it has glass packs, but I sort of miss the quiet now. Will be interesting to see what aftermarket systems will do with RX-8 performance though.

Originally posted by Vaillant
(first time I've actually seen it not on my computer or in a movie)

- Matt

Congratulations, I also seen one for the first time on friday. I think we live in a parallel universe because I was on my way to the Dback's/Red's game when I seen a truck load of them sitting in a parking lot on 7th street right by the ballpark. I talked to the trucker and he said they were the show cars (one of every color). The black one had the strakes and appearance package, the rest were stock.

Someone at my college owns a FD and I'm not sure if it has any problems but it was the noisest thing I have ever heard during Idle. I on my cell phone in the parking lot and the noise made it incredibly hard to heard and i could see the car vibrating during idle. I'm sure my rx-8 won't have those problems, but I'm just wondering if thats normal for a FD?

probably a non-stock FD it is....