Just been to the Radisson SAS in Manchester, there were two rows of UK spec pre-production RX-8s.

The cars looked stunning (were getting washed after a days outing with dealers on board), and a few even pulled into the carpark while I was hanging around.

There were a variety of cars just four low power the rest were all full? power models. there were three colours silver, red, and titanium (I'm so happy with my colour), the red and titanium look stunning the silver isnt far off but in my opinion benefits from the apperance package as seen in the US. No black cars were there and the only blue was our old friend the jap pre-prod that was displayed in the hotel foyer.

All cars were plain, no accessories had been fitted, however being UK spec cars they had the headlamp washers, lip spoilers, and rear foglights. There were a mixture of the optional extras, most cars had sat nav and leather with a few kitted out with the moon roof as well.

Sat in a Titanium car with sunroof, sat nav and leather and the chap turned it on so I could see the dash and hear the engine, wow! The dash looks fantastic and the engine sound is has been described, it fires up with a distinctive whir before settling down to a quieter note on tickover. Then I was invited to try the pedal
the descriptions of mad sewing machines do come to mind a little, but remember the engine wasn't under load, and even without this help I found the sound stimulating and I just wanted to keep it going. I think we will have to come up with a name for the grin you get having this sound under your control, it's like having some science fiction weapon at your disposal and you just want to go and try it out.

The interior of the cars is better than the pre-prod car it's more luxurious feeling, more finished, the black leather interior is dark but the seats are fantastic. The red and black interior looks great too, not as dark, but a bit too in your face for me.

The cars will be there tomorrow but only for a short time. The dealers are taken for a fairly long trip, starting from the hotel at around 8:30am the drive down the motorway heading for North Wales. They stop for lunch somewhere near Llandudno then drive back getting back to the hotel around 2:30pm. However, as tomorrow is the last day once the cars are returned after being checked over they are being packed up and shipped away, didn't find out where.

I plan to go down tomorrow morning with my camera to take some photos, video and sound clips.

Any question yu would like me to ask feel free to drop a note here, also photo requests, I'll see what I can do.

Thats all for now, cheers, Carl. (One very happy pre orderer, but it does make me want to scream Where's Mine!). :D :cool: :D

Hurry, I have got to leave work and go for a meal with my wife and brother-in-law, it will be ages before I get home and log on again.

Chris

You lucky man! I'm pleased that the colour looks so good although I suspect that you are slightly biased.

How could you possibly say that.;)

Great!

Glad someone could make it there and see them :)

So remember kidies! Harrass your dealer 4 teh win!

Damn! I know EXACTLY where the Manchester Radisson is (stayed there) and it was my day off work. Wish I'd known before, but that's life. :(

Glad the UK spec looks so good. Does the black leather come in 2 similar shades (I mean are the seat backs slightly differently toned to the edges?)

Just coz the black leather is what I ordered. :D

STU


PS Congratulations man. I am soooo jealous.

I think we will have to come up with a name for the grin you get having this sound under your control How about "a door and a half wide grin"? :D (Never did like the "suicide doors" phrase).

Just been down to the Radisson. There was no one there to open them up but it was nice to see all the cars together.
I have ordered red and I'm happy with that but the grey and silver looked good to. All the cars had nav & leather. They had the puddle lights under the exterior mirrors.
I took some photos but need to work out how to resize them. I have attched an e-mail sized pic of a few of the cars.

Can't wait for our cars to come now.:)

Don't know why that was rotated but here is another low res one

I'm curious about the red.

How dark/deep is it in the flesh?

Cheers
Oilman

Oilman, on my laptop your avatar is a bit too light but in Marks second photo the shade is about spot on.

Stu C, the leather has two finishes, a standard finish and the slightly ribbed finish we have seen in some photos. However, it's not as pronounced as it looks in some of those pictures.

You lucky man - I'm not doing anything at the moment and it's only a couple of hundred miles to Manchester - I might pop up now and hijack one of the drivers before they go for the day!:D

It all seems so tantalisingly close now - shame we've still got a few months (at least) to wait. Glad the Titanium and engine note didn't disappoint.:)

Titanium Grey, you are indeed a very lucky individual.

One question, well the only one I can think of.

Was the rear view mirror of the conventional type or did it have the auto dimming and Homelink buttons on it?

Once again congrats on revving the car and thanks for the information.

Chris

Originally posted by Titanium Grey
Oilman, on my laptop your avatar is a bit too light but in Marks second photo the shade is about spot on.

Stu C, the leather has two finishes, a standard finish and the slightly ribbed finish we have seen in some photos. However, it's not as pronounced as it looks in some of those pictures.

Cheers for the info, sounds fine to me :D

Stu

Titanium Grey, you said the quality of the interior had improved. Did you manage to close the cubby holes, glovebox and check out the front electric window switch housing ? These all but disintegrated on the blue (pre) car. And finally, did you get that new car smell !! :p


AnilS.

Nice one Carl - would love to see them myself. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

Good to hear the red is stunning also, though I had no doubts :) , and it looks like we get the puddle lights as well

Is this the Radisson Hotel at the Airport, as I think IVe been there before?

Cheers
Mark

Anils, no new car smell I'm afraid, they've been here for a few weeks now and have been driven and cleaned almost every day. The center console units still felt a little loose (the front ones I din't check the units in the rear).

Mark, Yes the Raddison is almost part of the airport terminal buildings now, and is linked to them by a foot bridge.

Other points to note, all these cars are still pre production cars and as such they still have been assembled in some part by hand, although using closer to production quality materials.

All cars present had a standard 'flip to dim' mirror, I was surprised to see this and asked the technical guy about it. Apparently they are still not sure about the final specifications of the cars we will be getting and he couldn't tell me if we were getting homelink or not.

I have a few photos and a couple of video clips (I was trying to capture the sound of the engine but the airport noise is a bit overwhelming). I am resizing and editing these now but I don't have a server I can post to, so any offers would be apprieciated.

Titanium Grey, many thanks for the response.

AnilS.

Just been to Leeds Mazda and had a spin in the Red UK High Power. - It's fantastic. The UK spec is superb and it looks the dogs danglies. Delivery expectations are reasonably end of October.

Pictures Follow :

Originally posted by crabacle
Just been to Leeds Mazda and had a spin in the Red UK High Power. - It's fantastic. The UK spec is superb and it looks the dogs danglies. Delivery expectations are reasonably end of October.

Pictures Follow :

:O

Now, I'm jealous. ;)

How did you manage that?
How did the dealer get a car (did he steal it from the dealer launch)?
Mazda reps. at Manchester wouldn't even contemplate taking me for a spin round the carpark in the cars there! :(

Thanks for the news:( :( :( :( :(

Cheers
Oilman

Oilman, I understand your frustration, it all seems to be happening up here at the moment and your a bit out on a limb down there.

Those of us who do get these opportunities should do our best to be the eyes and ears of those members who arn't so fortunate. Give as many details as you can, ask as many questions as you can, and be prepared to answer those posed by other members.

P.S. We should also see if we could arrange for other members to benefit from these occasional apperances of the car if possible too. ;)

More Pics

Again

Again

Last One.

This car went from 20 - 90 in the blink of an eye and handled like it was on rails. - It sounds like a knitting machine on speed.

Apparently the press had a go in North Wales this week, the police had a look and everyone thought that it was a fantastic car.

Spoke to the UK Marketing guy and explained our concerns, he was very sympathetic and I get the feeling that Mazda are trying their very best. - Watch out for the TV ads in October. :cool:

This last one is another guy going out on a drive. :)

More Pics

If anybody wants them zipped up give me a shout

I assume this was a passenger ride only?

You are a very lucky and privilaged individual, even luckier than Titanium Grey.

We here in the south west will just have to wait until October

Chris

Red at Manchester

Titanium Grey. :D

Silver.

Red Interior (through windscreen).

Black Interior

Close up showing seat ribbing.

Last one,
Fog light.

I also have some Quicktime movies, I am emailing these to Sixspeed (cheers for the help) they're not quite Stephen Speilberg and the background noise is terrible but I'll post them anyway.:p

Thanks for the addtional images, the centre speaker looks rather small, but then again aren't all Bose speakers relatively small.

The Black leather interior looks great and the seats are ribbed, is that for her pleasure?

Chris

Two thoughts: firstly isn't it weird to see an RX-8 with a UK plate on it??? Secondly: Titanium Grey. Best image of it so far... :D

What were your opinions of the suspension height? It's hard to see from these images but it still looks high.

It does look a bit high on these pictures but i think thats down to lighting angles, you will get a better impression from the Quicktime movies.

I found it to be about spot on for my taste, from a position equivilent to standing on the other side of the road the gap at the top of the arch appears slightly smaller than the ones in front and back. All the clips are of cars with both front seats occupied by Mazda dealers.

Originally posted by c170673
Thanks for the addtional images, the centre speaker looks rather small, but then again aren't all Bose speakers relatively small.

Chris
All the cars had a Bose Demo Cd in them so they must be confident about showing the system off.

Here's the videos, courtesy of Titanium Grey!


Manchester 1 (http://www.sixspeed.net/RX-8/Vclp0005.mov)
Manchester 2 (http://www.sixspeed.net/RX-8/Vclp0006.mov)
Manchester 3 (http://www.sixspeed.net/RX-8/Vclp0010.mov)
Manchester 4 (http://www.sixspeed.net/RX-8/Vclp0011.mov)



-andy-

Short but sweet. Nice audio.

Short but sweet. Nice audio

You took the words out of my mouth:)

Firstly, congratulations to Crabacle on getting a ride, but howcome a car is now available at Leeds?

Secondly, Me and the Mrs booked today off for a long weekend and had no plans for today. After reading Titanium greys post this morning I suggested "How about we go to Manchester this afternoon so I can have a look at some RX-8s and Ill take you to the Trafford Centre and Selfridges" :).

The plan worked, so we set off to aim to arrive around 2:30. Due to crap traffic on the M6 we didnt arrive until almost 3:30 and there were no RX8s left in the car park :(

Then we suddenly spotted some trailers down the road and they were loading the last few on, so I managed to have a look and take some pics. If We'd have been half an hour earlier, we would have had a chance to see them loading :(

It has been said so many times before, but this car looks so much better in the flesh than in any pictures. In fact all of them look fantastic whatever the colour. Surprised there were no black ones though.

I was hoping that I would be pleased with the Velocity Red and all I can say to Oilman and co to cheer you up is that STUNNING FANTASTIC and AWESOME is an understatement :D :D I absolutely love it and am soooo glad with my choice. Because they were on the trailers, I couldnt see inside. I wanted to check out the red leather so was a bit dissappointed.

I liked the Silver and Titanium too, but to my surprise both the Mrs and myself preferred the Silver of the two. Apologies to the Tit Grey boys, but I thought it did look a bit dull compared wih the Silver, but hey thats just my opinion :)

As said earlier, these cars did have the puddle lights, and not the auto dimming mirrors.

More importantly, the ride height looked about spot on to me, none of this Audi Allroad bollox from Autocar. I'll post a few pics I took later that show it.

There were a number of cars and vans passing, and everyone was slowing down to have a look.

Got me all really excited again now, the next 10 weeks or so is going to seem like forever :(

Oh, and we had some nice food in Selfridges as well :)

Nice pics and comments guys!

I'm off to Spain now so ADIOS AMIGOS.

Cheers
Oilman

Pic showing Ride height. Colour is not a good representation of Vel Red.

Originally posted by MarkW
Pic showing Ride height. Colour is not a good representation of Vel Red.

Yeah, that's not bad. Tell me: is the Titanium image on page 2 of this thread unrepresentative of the real colour?

Originally posted by Lensman


Yeah, that's not bad. Tell me: is the Titanium image on page 2 of this thread unrepresentative of the real colour?

Cant find one on page 2 :) , but if you mean the one on page 3 I think that looks quite good from memory, though even now its difficult to remember exactly.

Dont get me wrong Its still a great colour, I just seemed quite dark when next to the Silver as in this one below:

Originally posted by MarkW


Cant find one on page 2 :) , but if you mean the one on page 3 I think that looks quite good from memory, though even now its difficult to remember exactly.

Dont get me wrong Its still a great colour, I just seemed quite dark when next to the Silver as in this one below:

I guess the page number depends on your browser (Netscape 7.1 in my case). Well, whatever: the Titanium colour shown on this thread is superb and ideal for me. Conversely I truly don't like the silver: it's far too light for my taste. The good news is that we both chose the right colour then (red looks really good too though).

EDIT: Aha! The forum user settings allow us to change the number of posts per page. I've changed it to 40 and now I too see the image on page 2...

Red again...

On the trailer, ready to go...

The originals are much better quality but had to shrink 'em loads to upload on here :)

Last one for now, nice Tit grey for Lensman and co....

Go silver, go silver, go silver, go silver

go go go go go etc etc

(gyrates)

:D

Missed one day of forum and this happens...

I am speechless. You lucky so-and-so's !

Pleasssssseeeee Mazda tell us where they are ! It wouldn't kill you would it ?

Just out of interest , was it just Joe Public getting rides in the car at leeds ? Sincerely hope not given that a pre-orderer cannot be told where the cars are !

Been away on holiday but managed to see the cars before I went.

Got to say was disappointed that there were no black cars but what a sight seeing all those red silver and tit grey cars in one place.

Mark W is ssssooooo right when he constantly goes on about the cars looking better in the flesh they look fantastic!!!
Lets get one thing cleared up the ride height and the gap between the wheels and the arches is spot on ( it begs the question exactly what sort of car were autocar testing Audi Allroad --please!!!)

I know I won't be popular with everyone but I have to say seeing them side by side the Tit Grey to me looked the best !!
Hope the black looks as good.
I would also like to see the accessories in the flesh on a car before I ordered them as the lines on the stock car just looked great!! I felt there was no need to tamper (but those stakes look great in pictures).
The back end looked so much chunkier and planted on the car than in pictures and the raised bonnet moulding is divine.

The inside looked quality and the driving position in the seat was perfect (the cars had leather rather than cloth so hope cloth is as good) I have to say the smell of new leather was a touch overpowering (but then again maybe I'm just regretting my decision!)
The dash had this polished black plastic which looked like a black wood it looked far better than the pictures of the blue pre prod jap model. I've got a BM 5 at the moment and the dash was as good as that even if the facia plastics were not quite upto standard.
If you are above 6ft don't go for the moonroof it will be way too tight in there!!! I am 6 ft and I felt I had 2 inches spare which would disappear if you got the roof.
I can only liken it to the tardis on the inside the back seats seem miles away from you when you are in the front.

Finally the boot is a good size but the opening is pretty narrow certainly going to persuade wife to get a pram/buggy that folds both down and inward to make a long thin parcel.

Sorry to babble on and I know most of these points have been said already but another opinion is another opinion!!

I can now sit here and feel warm inside that I had the bottle to preorder as I know I have done the right thing!!
Well done everybody you will NOT be disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by ricm56
I know I won't be popular with everyone but I have to say seeing them side by side the Tit Grey to me looked the best !!

No: but you will be popular with the RIGHT people... ;)

The grey seemed to just look better it showed off the lines of the car better than the other two IMO.
But they did all look great!!!
Anyway, unfortunately the red ones seem to be unlucky as apparently one was stuffed on the press launch.
Anyone want a cheap rx-8 slight frontal crash damage!!!!!!!!!!

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ricm56
I know I won't be popular with everyone but I have to say seeing them side by side the Tit Grey to me looked the best !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


No: but you will be popular with the RIGHT people...



Thats fine by me, the more people that dont buy red the better as it makes it more exclusive :D :D

I have just spent the weekend in Anglesey and the Mazda garage there has a tit grey hipower in its showroom.
I didn't get a chance to call in while they were open but I saw it out and about on the roads during the day.

Really confused now. How come a dealer as a car, I was under the impression that they would receive their demos with our pre-orders in Oct?

rael.

Is this possibly one from the dealer launch in manchester?

Its not far from manchester to leeds after all.

Originally posted by RobDickinson
Is this possibly one from the dealer launch in manchester?

Its not far from manchester to leeds after all.

It's obviously one from the press launch in Anglesey - although why they are letting the dealers parade them in the dealerships I'm not sure.

I know this comment has been made before but Mazda seem to find it incredibly easy to p*ss people off.The amount of (mis)information that keep coming out is amazing.Not long ago we were all told that the preorders would go to customers before the dealers had demo's then this changed but we were assured that even the MD wouldn't get a car until preorders were satisfied. we now seem to be facing a situation were cars are "appearing" here and there, some being driven, some sat in showrooms, some giving test rides.
If the case is that for whatever reason some cars have been made available to more around the country then wouldn't it be nice to be told where and when. I don't need an invite printed on a piece of acrylic this time but i would love to see the finished car should one be in my area?

Meanwhile as a suggestion to mazda (if your reading this) why not get some info out to us on the prodrive events, at least this would give us something to look forward too and if there are cars available why not get the ball rolling sooner rather than later?

Ed

I understood that the car in Leeds last Friday was one of the pre-production cars that was used at the Manchester Press Launch the previous weekend. The car was taken to Leeds for some publicity shots as one of the ladies at the dealership was involved in the Formula Women event.

As far as I'm aware all of these pre-production cars (not quite the finished article) are ultimately bound for a fate worse than death - possibly the crusher!! :confused:

I mentioned that they could be used for the prodrive events instead of us using our cars. - WHether this will be taken up or not is anybody's guess. - Anyway the point is that these are not production quality cars are (as a rule) are not doing the rounds at the dealerships. - I was just lucky.

It appears that Mazda are keen not to piss pre-production customers off by having 'their' cars out at dealerships (as demos etc) as we have waited so long, - so fair game to them - they are up against a rock and a hard place.

On another thread I read that some were ready for shipping. - I was told that there will be some ready for shipping at the end of next week (possibly) - but remember that these then need to be shipped over from Japan and then allocated to the customers and dealerships. - We will just have to wait unfortunately. :)

Bloody Leeds dealership - I preordered with them and they never told me they had a UK spec RX8 in :mad:

I'd ordered a red and must work all of ten minutes away :mad:

Grrrrrrrrr