L.A. Auto Show 1/11/03
 

I'm gonna be a dork and cut and paste the e-mail I sent to some friends about what I saw. For the record, I'm a 6'4" 195-200 lb dude who is rather normal as far as dimensions, just tall.

I think most of the details on the Mazda Flash RX8 site are correct. They may have shaved off a few hp but not much. They disabled the trunk (bastards!) so I couldn't take a look at the capacity, but I assume it's tiny. It was a very popular car as far as crowds. Equal to 350Z but not as much as the true crowd-pleasers like the mini and silly cars like Ferraris and Lambs you can't get within 15 feet of.


Mazda RX8. This was the winner for me as far as the show went. I could fit in it! It had I think 207 HP so I'm sure the 350 would blow it away. If you go manual (strangely, non-standard) you can pull out another 35 horses at like a billion RPM. It had those half door rear seats. I guess it's not out yet, but it was cheaper than the Infiniti/Nissan. It doesn't look as sporty as the old RX7 I think, but rotary engine and all it's pretty damn cool. Looks like it's going to be the X-Men car in the upcoming movie.

Nissan 350Z. Main reason why I went. Crappy door handles. True 2 seater. I just can't fit. Even my ass (and I'm not too wide) was too much for the seats. I was spilling out of the buckets as it were. Nice horsepower. Nice design. Just too small.

Infinity G35. Their version of the 350Z. You lose a LOT of sportiness in the translation. You can really feel it up close. It's got the back seat, which gives me more room to play, and if they lose the sunroof I get 2 inches, but I still wouldn't fit really. You shave off (as I recall) like 30+ horsepower from the 350 and I'm sure it's a bunch heavier.

Toyota GTS. Best I can figure, they took an $18K car, slammed it with L.A. rice-burner spoilers/wheels/whatever and jacked up the price $8K. A chintzy car. I can't fit in it either. They didn't show the HP and when the leave out details like that, I've always found it's bad. Like the VW Beatle has 115 hp. I think my computer fan has more than that.

Audi TT. I can sorta fit, but in some strange process of horrible car design they made the sides of the roof come down and be directly in my line of sight. So I'd be fine as long as I don't have to look left. What were they thinking? A fairly tall lady was in front of me and she noticed this and said I was never going to fit. She was right.

Acura RSX. This is basically a Civic EX as best as I can tell. I think it was like $19K. 160 HP. So a bit of a sporty look, but nothing else.

Ford Mustang anniversary edition. It was only on display, but it looked surprisingly better than I thought. I still don't like the back much but decent. The Thunderbirds look crappy to me.

Hyundai (forget name). It's their new coupe. Kinda like the RSX. I can't fit in it. Another budget coupe though it looks pretty nice for a Hyundai.

Lexus SC. Sweet car. Very sharp. I keep mistaking them for 350Z's when I see them except they cost an extra $30K. 300HP. Standard GPS. One of the cleanest convertibles as far as ease and stowage I've seen. Too bad the bastard runs $62K.

The only concept car I thought was really striking was oddly the Cadillac. Looked pretty amazing but I'm sure they won't do anything with it.

nice report!!

The So-Cal RXs were also on hand today in L.A.. You might have seen us.. a lot of the guys were wearing club shirts. Anyway, here are some pics of our visit the LA auto-show

(almost all RX-8 pics)

http://www.socal7s.org/laas2003/

BTW, the trunk was open when we were there.. I actually tried to stick a few club guys in thr trunk :D

Cheers,

-Bern
Southern California RX Club
http://rotarynews.com

Wow. I haven't seen the back end up close like this yet. I'm no automotive engineer, but those look like some severe bends in the tailpipes. I have to think that straighter pipes would cause less backpressure. I wonder how much power is being robbed by those 90 degree angles.

http://www.socal7s.org/laas2003/DSC00204.jpg

It's a mandrel bend, and it looks more severe from the angle that the photo was taken.

---jps

Even without crimping the pipe it is still a bend. At least in theory that should increase pressure, decreasing exhaust gas flow.

However, I just read in one of the documents that it is a single exhaust that splits into 2 at the back end. That being the case, I think the higher pressure is offset by greater area. I am just speculating based on high school physics though.

can you say single-tip high-flow exhaust? ;)

They should have put a single exhaust with the exhaust tip in the shape of a rotor. I don't know why Mazda didn't do this. They put rotor motifs everywhere else.

I like that idea!

Racing Beat, are you listening? :p

For the European and some other version, this's for rear foglight