Earlier today we showed you the story of Corbin Goodwin and his rat rod Mazda RX7. While it looks really freaking cool now, this car was a two year labor of love that started in 2010. This is how it all came together.
Like any good car fanatic, Corbin documented the build of his RX7 over on RX7club.com. If you think this all came together lickety split, you're wrong. This is a two year long labor of love and it was done IN HIS PARENTS' DRIVEWAY.
This is how it all started:
The car is an 84 three-letter that's been sitting since 1994 in Fresno. In my quest for a V8 and a complete overhaul to a canyon rat I have already shed blood and sweat, though no tears per se. Anyhow, to sum up, it started with a crap interior (no original pics) and an engine that would take some work to get running again, though it turns over by hand, and now the engine is sold.
The original car is a 1984 RX7 with a 12A and an automatic transmission, which he promptly sold. Corbin went into a good bit of detail in the video, but it seems that a lot of commenters seem to think this is a half assed build. It's far from it.
Every part of the car that needed to be redone has been redone. It's not like he cut corners. Corbin took what little money he had and threw it at the project. He's an engineering student who uses his job delivering pizzas to fund this project. That fund has amounted to about $13,000 and two years of Corbin's time. I can't sum up the entire build here, but Corbin proudly posts every single step in the two year adventure. It's a great read.
Corbin's car is one of the more polarizing we've seen in a long time. It's one of those cars that you either love or love to hate. For some people (like myself) it strikes a certain chord of awesome. A homebuilt ride that was built to one man's vision. It isn't for mass consumption. That's what I love.
Matt Farah loves it too, as he explained in the comments on the original post:
Here's a kid who looks like a total hippie, who has never had a drop of alcohol nor a puff of weed. He makes a shitty living and lives in his parents house while he goes to enginering school. And yet he was able to save up $13,000 to put into go-fast shit for his car. All the mechanical bits on the car are totally legit stuff that you'd see on a proper track or project car, and not a dime was spent where it didn't need to be spent. It runs cool and smooth. It required no fine-tuning at the last minute like all these "pro" tuner shops do before we film their cars. It's fast as fuck. 2400 lbs and 330 whp is no joke. And the kid knows the car inside and out, can fix anything with basic tools very quickly, and drives it ridiculously fast and with skill. One of our cameramen, Zack, took a ride with Corbin up Stunt Rd, where Corbin does his "testing," and said that he had never been up Stunt that fast, in any car, at any price, with any driver.
As Corbin told me earlier today "Some people just don't really get it." But if you do get it, you love it.
Oh, here's some engine porn:
(Hat Tip to Nolan!)