Someone's Put An FD RX-7 Butt On A Mazda MX-5 And We Have Questions

Intra-brand styling transplants can be either dreadful or inspired. For instance, few could argue that the afixing of BMW’s giant new 4-series grille on an E60 M5 was a good idea, but the M2-faced M140i we spotted a little further back was an absolute triumph.

What you see here falls into the latter camp. It’s an NA Mazda MX-5 currently for sale via a Yahoo! Japan auction, and as any self-respecting JDM-phile will have clocked immediately, it has the rear end of an FD RX-7.

This raises many questions. Not necessarily surrounding the ‘why’ side of things - we suspect the rationale behind butt transplant was simply because it’d look cool. And it does.

No, we’re more concerned with the ‘how’. It’s not a messy cut ‘n’ shut job, rather one that makes the FD’s rear look like it actually belongs on the back of the first MX-5. That’s the sort of thing that will have taken a lot of work, and no doubt cost a lot of money to get done.

An Instagram post we came across via Reddit shows how the transplant might have been done. Although it depicts a second-gen MX-5 having the RX-7 rear swap, we’d imagine the process would be similar given the shape of the NB. The image shows the donated RX-7 rear finishing just before the MX-5 boot lid, although around the sides, some of the FD’s quarter panels are retained and blended into the MX-5’s. Not that there’s any evidence of this join in the finished article, in either that Miata or the red one we’re featuring here.

Located in Nerima-ku, Tokyo, the Frankenmiata also features an aftermarket body kit and has been given a whole load of negative camber for the divisive ‘stance’ look. This should be reasonably easy to rectify should you be taken by the RX-7 rear but not the rest of the aesthetic changes.

It’s covered around 150,000 kilometres (93,000 miles) and has a few faults listed including some rust on the boot and a little play in the steering. The ‘buyout price’ is 1,200,000 yen (around £8,300), and at the time of writing the auction page has four days remaining.