Hello from Dick

[1973Ro80]

Name Dick Flower
Born Malta â€" Father was in the RN, stationed there. Lived in England until 1962.
Wife Yes. Same one for 44 years
Kids Yes, Dawn & Peter
Job Retired after 15 years in my own marine engineering business in Spain.
Previously oil rig electrician, all over the world.
Likes Older cars, rotary engines, sailing, touring by car â€" I stopped flying
Dislikes Cowboys. Most car dealers. People who buy old cars they can’t fix, don’t want to find out how, and complain when they break down.

I’ve owned 60 or more bikes & cars, including 3 Ro80’s â€" bought in ’68 (new), ’75, and ’84 â€" I still have the last one. Now down to 4 cars, a VW camper and a Dodge 50 truck.


I always wanted a Mazda rotary â€" nearly bought a new RX7 after a test drive in Texas a few years ago, but finally settled for a Mazda engine in the Ro80. The only Mazda I used was a 929, for a year in Saudi after I refused to drive the Chevy Impala they gave me when it blew a front tyre. (I don’t know how fast I was going, as the speedo only went to 70). The Mazda was incomparably better.


After retiring I finally completed the Mazda into Ro80 project I’d planned for years. Now pottering about keeping the everyday cars going, fixing the boat and the house. I really don’t know how I ever found time to do a full time job!

[Lisa]

Hello Dick

Very interesting profile!

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[FONT="Comic Sans MS]Welcome to MRC- your membership pack will be in the post tomorrow.

Just goes to show, like we have always said MRC caters for all ages!!

Hope you enjoy your stay and look forward to hearing more from you on the forum.[/FONT]

[ro284]

Hello Dick,
Very interesting profile you have, Do you have any pics of the RO80 (plus anything else ) you could share please, and welcome to MRC
Cheers Bob

[chrisJDM]

hello and welcome to the club, very interesting story aswell

[clive]

Hello Dick and welcome to Mazdarotaryclub,

You will find that this is a club that you can have a big involvement with if you wish even though your in France as the clubs forum is very much the day to day face surrounding the operation of the club with not only members here in the U/K but also all around the world,

Over the years the club has become very much a "Rotary community" with many people using the clubs forum not only to share their interest in their hobby but also use the club to voice many other aspects of their life\'s, past and present plus views in general, all in all making MRC a very interesting club  

I feel one of the very best parts of our community is that it was the members themselves who evolved in particular the forum,in it\'s initial years the forum actually had no rules at all,

From this I am very pleased to say that it is a club devoid of any sort of segregation either by race, religion, sexism, ageism or worst of all "carism" if there is such a word , as many other car club forums can be hostile toward people with the "wrong car" or even the "wrong parts" bolted to it.

Here you only need an interest in Mazdarotarys,
Welcome to Mazdarotaryclub:cheers and a Happy New Year to you

[Brett]

Welcome to MRC :wave

Sounds like you have had an interesting life so far!

[1973Ro80]

Thanks for the welcome. Pics of my current Ro80 are on my ads in both For Sale sections. Poor thing now just sits in the back of the garage, I’m scared to use it or park it here in France, where they regard scrapes and swipes as part of normal driving, and the Alfa uses about half the petrol. I thought I’d better find a good home for it. I seem to have finally grown out of driving fast, and it doesn’t like being driven slowly.
 
Here are a couple of pics of my first Ro80, the granddaddy of all your cars, only a couple of days old, in 1988, and checking out its cornering in Spain, sorry the scanned slides are not such good quality.
 
I bought the car through the agent in Teheran, to collect at the factory. I paid £100 to the agent and £1,080 when I collected it from Neckarsulm. It sold in UK for around £2,400. Those were the days!
 
When I asked how fast I should drive with the new engine, the factory sales guy thought for a bit, then said “Maybe 100 mph for the first thousand kilometers”.

The car was fantastic compared with anything else I had driven. So quiet at speed. Later models had a 7000 rpm rev limiter, but this one would reach nearly 8000 in top on a good stretch, nearly 150 mph.
 
I was working in Algeria then, and drove several times between Burnley and Oran, about 2,000 miles plus 2 ferries, in 4 ½ days, wife sharing the driving, poor kids stuck in the back. There were no motorways on the route in those days, but much less traffic, especially at night, apart from huge queues at borders. We eventually knew the route by heart, and stayed in the same hotels nearly every trip.
 
The car never missed a beat in nearly 2 years, it was made for fast driving.
In my opinion all the problems the car had were caused by crawling around towns fouling up the plugs and seals.