Been to Silverstone today on an Audi hospitality type event. Whilst I was there I seen all the dealer demo's getting readied for their collection from Monday.
I couldn't blag a drive though because it was just the valeters there.
There was a good mix of silver, tit and red but no black cars which I thought odd. Not many with extras except one tit with strakes, polished wheels and front triangle thingy. The wheels don't look too bad in the flesh, they appear larger than the regular ones but obviously an illusion.
I have now made my mind up on strake colour and it won't be polished.
Red is nice but the dull weather lets it down.

 

250 RX8's in one place - what sight that must have been.

One day you might loose the RX8 amoungst all the others in the supermaket car park if its sucessful, but hopefully not yet!

I know, its a damn shame we are getting them in winter, as after the clocks have gone back tonight most of us will only be seeing them under sodium light, execpt at the weekend - and they'll be dull

Cheers
---Dave

 

Sorry but I forgot to say that whilst I was ogling all these beauties they were having trouble starting a few of them. Good job these are the dealers cars

What I found odd is that amongst the lines of RX8's there were a line of other quite nice cars, ie, TT's 3 series coupe's, IS200's and a 350Z. I presume Mazda are going to use these cars as a comparison to show the dealers how they compare as they will be put through the handling course.

 

Is that because the car you saw had polished strakes which didn't suit it or because it had brushed strakes which DID suit it? I've ordered polished strakes for my Titanium car so this interests me.

 

There were 3 or 4 titanium cars there with polished strakes on them and I felt that they didn't quite suit it, hence my reason for choosing brushed.
I hope this helps.
IMO if Mazda had priced the accessories a tad cheaper then these smaller items wouldn't be so much of a nightmare to choose between because you would just change them if you got sick of the colour.

 

Yay !

I seem to be in a minority who has ordered titanium and brushed...
I just *knew* they would go better...

 

He didn't say the brushed looked better just that he didn't like the look of the polished. Reading between the lines I don't think he saw the brushed on the Titianium, if at all.

 

Then there's the opposite opinion as described by Rael here:

 

I saw brushed strakes ready for my car at dealer yesterday. I looked at them against a Tit Grey 323 and they looked good.

They do not appear to be painted at all, it is just the way the unpolished aluminium appears.

I was concerned after reading the previous posts however having seen them in the flesh I am not going to swap for polished.

Maz

 

Correct, the only cars that I seen with strakes on were all Titanium with polished strakes.

So process of elimination is the reason I choose brushed:D

 

I was going to say as a joke, when you said that they were all with the valeters, that I bet they flooded half of them while moving them around to clean them. Oh dear. We really are going to have to be careful with this.

 

My first actual meeting with a (movable under its own steam) RX8 was at the Leeds dealership with one of the pre-prod cars.

It was a bugger to start - but then it was a pre-prod!!

Any feedback on this from the States?

 

well i have heard of people having trouble starting theirs but i have never had the problem. since day one with the car i have always let it "initialize", by this i mean turn the key to "on" then let all the lights come up, wait for the few that turn off to do so and then turn it to start. it will start right up after a crank or two. during this 5-10 seconds you can hear the fuel pump cycle if you listen close, so i believe letting it go thru this cycle gets the car "primed" so to speak. if you go from off to start dead away i have heard it takes more cranks, one person who was having the trouble the other day went thru the initializing and has had no furthur trouble. oh and i never hold the accellerator downwhile starting, i keep my foot off the pedal entirely.

 

It'll be like having a diesel and waiting for the coils to warm up.

 

Try reving a diesel to 9k :>

 

I know that many on here think that diesels are the spawn of satan but in day to day driving, especially if you do a lot of motorway miles, diesels are extremely competent. The extra torque makes overtaking a breeze without downchanging.

Don't get me wrong - I'm looking forward to dropping the RX8 a couple of cogs to blast past the BMW thats finally pulled over and know that gearchanges are part and parcel of a drivers car but I also think diesels are now very good cars.

 

Even Clarkson was surprised about diesels in Sundays TopGear, but no matter how much torque and how many hundreds to the gallon they do, I could never put up with one.

All the omph is delivered in just a couple of thousand revs when the turbine kicks in along with that huge cloud of black smoke (the real reason diesel drivers think they are fast - they aren't pulling away, everyone else is dropping back in to clean air).

Imagine those poor diesel jag owners, pay all that for the car, and it still sounds like a delivery van when you start it up.

Cheers
---Dave

 

Much as I respect Jezza - I could never put up with a diesel.
The noise , the miserable power band , the clouds of black smoke once it gets a couple of years old , the nasty black stained floor at the petrol pump.
Evil , dirty , nasty fuel..... ughh. <shudder>

The only advantage it has (it really is the only one) is economy. If that is your #1 thing then great - enjoy. If you are actually into cars (as opposed to just thinking of them as an A-B appliance) then it will be petrol every time.

On a related note - now that tax is making them so fasionable , has anyone thought what it is going to be like in 5 years time ? All these vast amounts of diesel cars are going to be knocking around , and once they do get a bit older the black clouds start. It is going to be absolutely terrible ! Every other car you are behind in a traffic queue will belch a huge black clud everytime the queue advances a few feet.... I have seen the future - and it is sooty.

These liberal thoughts were brought to you by Morgan. Enjoy.

 

I do like my diesel with its near 300ftlbs of torque and 190bhp due to its remap but as you said the power comes from a very narrow powerband and there is no getting away from the fact it will always sound like a tractor.

Fortunately I can have the best of both worlds.:D

 

:D :D :D