Let Fate Decide

Some of Jemal’s cars FOR SALE!

I know I’m the type that never wants to get rid of anything. When it comes to cars, that becomes a bit of a problem! I’ve hung onto survivors for decades, sometimes with the intent of restoring them, but always for the pleasure of owning and driving (and fixing!) unusual and interesting vehicles that become more so with the passage of time.

But with a just-turned-five year old, and with (very) long time horizons for my projects, an honest assessment of what I can hope to accomplish requires I narrow my focus, and perhaps give someone else a chance to take over stewardship of the history I have preserved.

This page is for profiling and “perhaps” offering for sale some of my collection of cars and parts. Fate is who might come along and hear the story, realize the value and really want one of these unique vehicles… or not! If some find homes that can give them more attention, I will have time and space for other projects.

1974 Mazda Rotary Pick Up

One of the most unusual vehicles anywhere – in more than 15 years of driving this truck, I’ve only SEEN one other on the road! Don’t take the owner’s word for it… Both Google and YAHOO place the Mazda REPU in their Top Ten most unusual vehicles list!

Of course it has a story! I spotted it in the mid 1990s in the driveway of a nearby property. I don’t think I’d ever seen one, but knew it had the big 13B engine which I craved for my Gen 1 RX7. So I went a-knockin’. Turned out the original owner had moved from Bakersfield in Southern California to Nevada City to start a Winery. But no, he wasn’t ready to sell his truck to a long haired kid (remember… 25 years ago…) who wanted to swipe the engine out of it!

Nearly 10 years and a couple of RX7s later, I was working on my green Cooper S (tho it was reddish then) listening to our small town radio station “Swap Shop” when a raspy sounding caller said “74 Mazda Pickup”. My Rotary Radar must have activated, and I heard “it’s got some kind of rotor engine”. That afternoon, I was testing the warning beeper in the tach. It still worked at 7000 RPM!

Turned out the fellow had just bought the same truck from the same original owner. Right away he hated it! The rotary was hard to start, got horrific fuel “economy”, wouldn’t stay parked on a hill where he lived, and simply was NOT the little economy truck he thought. After flooding it the first few mornings, he called the “garage sale of the airwaves”, looking to get his money back. As I recall, he had not yet registered the truck, so I’ve always said I’m the second owner.

About 15 years later I was shopping at our A to Z hardware store when I was paged! “Would the owner of the yellow Mazda Truck come to the front of the store”. I though oh no, I forgot to set the brake and it rolled out into the road… but no, it was the ORIGINAL OWNER who spotted it and wanted to say hello! He was amazed that the truck still looked just as good as when he sold it.

It runs a lot better though! The original 13B had nearly 140,000 miles on it and was still driving a dead AC compressor and one of those absurd “smog pumps”. Within weeks of buying the truck, I had the original engine rebuilt by a rotary expert with the best available parts. As it was a truck and needed bottom end torque, we only did some “street porting” to the 4-port 13B, and I kept the stock truck flywheel.

I drove it that way for many years. I added the custom exhaust system and Toyota Tundra wheels – the Rotary Pickup has the same 6-lug pattern as 1/2 ton Chevy and Toyota 4-wheel drive, so many wheels will fit. No other compact truck had anywhere NEAR the strength of the REPU running gear.

If you follow me here or on YouTube, you know that I can’t just “fix things” when I can make them better! I had trouble with the stock 4-barrel Hitachi carb (more mandated vacuum fittings and crap than any other carb EVER!), and the ignition was easy to modernize and improve (like engineers wanted but Marketing wouldn’t!) You’ll have to watch the playlist of videos I’ve put on my YouTube channel over the many, many years I’ve enjoyed owning this truck.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf9CYi_IUYZnJEtku_xSVyLzHaJDvjFkc