The Hoonigans YouTube channel is the place to go if you are looking to see some of the most interesting and madly-modified vehicles, as well as some truly crazy stunts. This video is a bit different, however, as it takes us into the Peterson Automotive Museum. The place is home to well over 100 cars and some of the most unique ones are held in “The Vault”. These include some of the first vehicles ever made, movie cars, “001” chassis cars (the first of their kind), as well as some awesome concept cars.

Before getting to the focus of this video, we are being shown some other cool cars, like a Honda N600, which was actually the first-ever made, and Renault Alpine A110S Group 4 Rally car.

There it is!

If you only want to see the pre-production FD RX-7, I suggest you skip to the 7:05 mark. The beautiful orange Mazda concept is parked neatly between cars like the Porsche 928, a 1950s Ford Thunderbird, and a Ferrari 550 Super America.

You can clearly recognize the FD proportions we all know and love, but there’s also a lot more in common with an NA Miata. The car looks smaller than the production version and the front fascia looks like it’s smiling, just like on a first-generation MX-5. This is one of the four designs proposed to Mazda for their next RX7. Yoichi Sato is responsible for what we see in the video. The Hoonigan presenter is very keen to point out this is before the first production car.

No longer a “Bootleg 944”

The FC RX-7 is a great car in its own right, but it is pointed out that it was essentially a Japanese copy-paste version of the Porsche 944. On the other hand, the FD was supposed to be more upscale and unique than any other two-door Mazda before it. It was actually sold under the “Efini” name in Japan, which was kind of Mazda’s luxury brand.

Very similar to the production version

Scotto mentions the obvious – the pre-production car we see here is very close to what we actually got in the end. He also says, this is something he would love to own, to which I am sure many of us can relate. Sadly (for him), he cannot fit in it.

Regardless of whether or not we can comfortably sit in it, it’s a cool piece of Japanese automotive history and is worthy of sitting among the other big names in the Peterson Automotive Museum.

Although we wanted to focus on the Mazda RX-7, the video continues and we get to see other awesome, unique, and rare vehicles from the collection.