I ordered the car exactly 8 months ago. It was released over a week ago, and today I finally got the call. After work my wife and I rushed over to pick it up.

At the dealership the fates were smiling - the first time I ever saw my own car there was just dazzling sunshine and the gold sprinkles in the red paint GLEAMED from almost 10' away - I have never seen the Velocity Red look so good (and I have tested a red RX-8 3 times, seen one at the Rev-It-Up and also at the Motor Show). It is ahead of silver as my favourite again...

The dealership was great - the GM cheered when he saw me finally get my car (he knows me), the sales manager popped in on his day off and bumped into me to say congrats (he has my number on speed dial on his cell-phone) and my sales guy (Richard aka RX8Seller here) did a superb job on going over the car, NAV system and manuals etc - he is a long time rotary driver and one of the best (meaning honest and helpful) salesmen I have experienced. I have to say the dealership has always been honest and gave great service - a big thank you to Jeff Haas Mazda in Houston, I look forward to doing all my servicing there.

However not everything was perfect - the passenger seat plastic side (near airbag symbol) had a dent, as did the rear door interior trim. It seems someone at the port had slammed the rear door shut whilst the seatbelt strike (metal plate) was twisted and turned 90% so it left these two dents. Of course the dealership will replace the effected items once the parts come in, and the dents are not too noticable (I didn't see it during my inspection and neither did Richard - thank my wife's supervision). In fact my wife and I spent over 30mins going over the inside and outside of the car very carefully and that was the only flaw we found.

But this barely registers on my enjoyment of this car. A full write up will follow next week if anyone is interested (how many more reviews can you take?). Personally I am taking a sabbatical from the forum until Monday to focus on the car instead of reading and writing about it. Tomorrow I put the Huper Optik tint on it, so photos will follow at some point.

But I have to share one last thing: on the way home (I took some quiet back roads to avoid people and concentrate on the vehicle) I noticed some big black dude in an old Civic next to me waving frantically to wind my window down. I did so and he shouted 'beautiful car - is it a V8'.
I shout back 'No, it's a rotary'.
'But does it have a V8?'.
'It doesn't have ANY cylinders, it's a rotary engine'
'Wow - that's cool man - I like it.'

Yep, this car is special...

 

Enjoy it!

I am very interested to see some pictures of the red with the Optik tint - my velocity red is arriving next week, and that's the tint I was planning on. Please post some pictures when you get some free time - ie when the car is resting

 

yea I had some dude drive up while I washing mine in the driveway the other day. In his lowered/riced up honda. He thought it was cool and said it looked like the 'Batmobile'. He ask how much HP it had. He had a disappointed look on his face and said "I would have thought it had more". To each his own I guess. I didn't offer to race him.

 

Congrats! I've never been a fan of red cars, but the Velocity Red is awesome. I was even tempted by it. Actually my last car was red.

Please write a review!! As you know when waiting for your car, living vicariously through others really helps out a lot.

Once again congrats and enjoy!

 

I posted them in this thread.

 

Is it tinted yet? It's difficult to tell with the lighting in some of the pictures.

Looks great though, nice pictures. My red on red/black is now a week late and I'm tearing my hair out

 

Yes - I put on Huper Optik Stark 30 (about 34%) all round. It doesn't look very dark but it is a miracle in keeping the heat out of the car (especially useful with the dodgy AC the RX-8 has). I will post better pics later...