Go For Gold

The Mazda MX-3 is one of those interesting cars loved by those who've tried one and completely ignored by everyone else. Plagued by either poor marketing or simply bad timing, it barely registers in the awareness of most enthusiasts, and is almost completely unknown to the layman.

While enjoyable when equipped with the base 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine, the MX-3 was also available with a distinctive V6. At 1.8 liters, it remains the smallest production V6 engine on record, which leads us to this example.

Goldmember, which is the name Andy gave to this pristine MX-3, easily stands out with its distinctive gold paint job, (extremely) rare Mazdaspeed body kit, and, of course the aforementioned V6, but there's definitely more to this story. When planted in his Recaro seat, Andy's hands control his 'member (couldn't resist) via a Momo steering wheel, while his feet move the matching Momo pedals and his eyes keep track of the Autometer gauges. The best bit, however, is under the hood. Nestled in the engine bay, controlled by Autometer hardware, is a full turbo system. That's right, Andy's baby is boosted. This combo has proven quite effective. Andy and Goldmember have an 11-second time slip to prove it.

This is not the first time Goldmember has been featured online, and hopefully it won't be the last. This is a car that deserves the recognition the MX-3 deserved all along.

Update:

Andy has written to let me know that I had some info on his car wrong. Let's set it right.

While the car did originally come with the 1.8 V6, he has since swapped it with the 2.5 from a Mazda 626.

Also, I thought it was weird that he had Autometer engine management, as I didn't know that Autometer did that. Turns out I was right. Goldmember actually runs MegaSquirt, something Andy has a bit of experience in, as he has built MegaSquirt setups for some other people's rides.

That will be all.