Has anyone ever wondered what my 323 looks like?
Well I thought I\'d post a photo as he had a shampoo at the weekend!
Brett & I drove him to Birmingham to a specialist Japanese car breaker at the weekend. He makes a good work horse to pick up parts as he has a good sized boot - the guys there were going on about how rare it is to see these 323\'s now. It was good for someone to appreciate him, after all of these years of peeps telling me to get rid of him and buy something "newer"!
He was one of the 1st 500 FWD Mark II 323\'s (1296CC 3-Door Hatchback) manufactured in late 1980 - and he\'s quite interesting as with many early versions of models he came with cross-over anomalies, such as he has the 1500 GT radiator.
My Dad bought him from new - the families\' third Mazda (before this an "M" reg 818, then an "S" reg Mark 1 323 RWD 3-door). We were strictly a new car every 2-3 years family, then we just kept this one!
He\'s done about 80,000 miles now and has paid for his keep many times over. He\'s been a bit neglected since the RX7\'s came along (he had to exit the garage for the Egi for one thing) - and needs a bit of TLC now. So I think it\'ll be his turn in the summer! :D
He\'s not completely original having had some minor welding done and I\'ve re-sprayed bits of him, but nothing bad really for a 26 year old car. He\'s been Waxoyled of course and never goes near a salty road!
I\'ve built up a decent stock of parts over the years and have even been lucky enough to reclaim panels off scrapped 323\'s in his original colour. (I think he\'s on hatch number three now, which I stripped, sprayed and re-fitted many years ago.)
Anyway, just something different which in some respects is my most cherished Mazda!
Hope you like him!
Lynn
:) :Thumbs-up
Cool!
i always thought these looked like opels.......and the overall shape seems to be the same one vauxhall decided to base the nova on.......is that a bad thing?????? :2eek
Schweet looking car tho matey ;)
My wife had a 1985 Ford Laser Sport (the one with with carbs) as her first car. It\'s basically the same car as yours with a few cosmetic differences and of course blue ovals. That was back in 1998 ish! We put a K&N filter in it and lowered it slightly on its factory cookie cutter alloys. It was a quick little car around town but lost its oomph very quickly when confronted with a hill. (infact it wasn\'t unheard of to need 1st gear on a hill when full of people!). A guy that used to live round the road from me even had one fitted with a DOHC turbo from a later model Familia GTR!! It was a total race car. Madness!
use have one of these 323GT with twin carbs, sunbeam silver colour with black bumpers,13"alloy with 175/70/13 tyres .
its goes like sh.t and fastest than xr2.
Brill car!!
cool, it looks like quite a few of the basic shapes were a cary over from the Mk1 ... wonder if the door skins fit the MK1
Quote from: ian duncanuse have one of these 323GT with twin carbs, sunbeam silver colour with black bumpers,13"alloy with 175/70/13 tyres .
its goes like sh.t and fastest than xr2.
Brill car!!
Yes they were fab! :D It\'s a shame that my Dad didn\'t buy the GT as it was the top of the range one and they\'re quite collectable now!:2Rolleyes
I\'ve got a set of those alloys that you mention too! Technically they were an optional extra for the whole range - but very expensive! I\'ve never put them on the car!
I found a metallic black GT (always Mazda\'s coolest paint colour in my opinion)in a scrapyard - which if I remember correctly was the donor for the current hatch (they always rust at the corners of the rear screen and along the chrome strip which I always remove at the base of the hatch) - and I think that the set of alloys were off that car. That was a real boy racers car! I had to have all of the tyres removed from the rims as they were completely treadless and down to their steel radial strips and you couldn\'t move them about without sheering your hands to shreds! :2eek The car had loads of vinyls with "GT" on the rear screen etc. I remember that one very well indeed - I had visions of the police stopping it during an XR2i encounter and empounding it straight away due to the tyres!
Would love a black metallic GT to add to my collection - I look for them occasionally but they don\'t seem to come up for sale that often.
Lynn
:D
Black colour is actual gunmetal grey,( or Black!)
mine\'s hardly any rust cos it\'s cover all with black underseal e.g in the engine bay,underside, inside the door, rear hatch, etcc,
Don\'t remember which company doing that, it\'s something called " Ze..th.."
Gold "GT" badges is on the bottom of wing next to the doors
I sold the GT way back 1989, bought an 1984 series 2 Rx7 and again sunbream silver colour