Hopefully picking up my new purchase the weekend.
Has anyone got an idea of numbers of mk1 rsltds in the.Â
Ive been to a few car shows.,silverstone etc but have never seen another in the fleshÂ
Anecdotally, there seem to be more RS’s in the UK around than R-Limiteds, even though there were 500 RS Limiteds originally, versus 1000 R-Limiteds. Might be that more RSs were saved from the Great Scrapyard than R’s.
There’s enough data now to put a number on the number of Eunos Roadsters that were imported between 1997 and 2005. The DVLA data doesn’t really split imports, but you can estimate that by using UK sales data, and an estimation how many UK cars there ought to be now.Because there are decent public records for the number of UK sales by year, you can apply a rate to get the numbers sold by year to the number today, and its averaging about 3% of the fleet, by year, is chipped away (in truth, the rate would have been a bell curve, but an average is good enough). If you apply that rate, then between 1997 and 2005, about 18,000 Eunos Roadsters were imported. But actually the loss rate was probably higher than for UK, because imports were generally more likely to be written off by insurers, and because they were cheaper, probably not maintained as well. So doubling the attrition rate gives me about 32,000 cars. In comparison, there were 18,715 Mk1 MX5s sold new in the UK, versus 230,714 sold in Japan. Allowing for some bias by importers (looking for special editions), maybe 70-90 RS-Limiteds came to the UK. Can’t see how it would be any more than that.
Jimdad - I have one!
I would agree similar numbers to the UK as SAZ9961. Though I would reckon a fair few have met a scrappage death or destroyed by slamming/boy racer mods before the rarity was widely known…
I can probably find 10 or so project RS-Ltd build threads on various uk forums so would reckon we may be below 50 cars as not all will be owned by typical car forum users (though i know numbers are dying a bit on these). I am on a facebook group for RS-Ltd’s That has 71 members, but i am not sure they all still have a RS!
Not sure if many more will come to the uk due to the 25 year US import rules and the weak pound v yen, so we need to cherish the ones we have here now!
Incidentally I am not sure if DVLA keep VIN numbers, but I have got about 60% of the RS-Ltd VIN numbers on a spreadsheet that I had started to compile from an online Japanese vin checker. This was when i had a bit of free time while working in Dubai over the last few years. Maybe one day i will complete!
Thanks for the replies.
Im on facebook. Havent seen an rs group. Tend not to go on many of the mx5 related one due to some of the idiots you get on there
Search “MX5 RS-Ltd forum” and you will find the group. You then need to apply to join…
Not the most active but sone good threads
Ive asked to join . Thanks
Another fellow RS-LTD owner here. Hi.
Me too!
Me Two,
As in there are two Rs Ltds in my garage, both missing the recaros but all wheels and centers present and correct.
One is completely stock apart from cloth seats.
Its in very good condition but the paint is tired.
Registration M400 RSL !!!
The other is a modified and has got 169 Bhp running on throttle bodies but has been in the UK for 11 years and still does not have a V5 as it has only just come out of an extended strip down an rebuild and now has its first ever UK MOT.
I am just waiting for the DVLA to process the documents and give it a number plate.
Its chassis number is NA8C-300027 I have got registration M27 RSL on retention for it.
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Nice little collection there