With 54%, the GR Corolla wins over the Type R – wait till I show you just how good that car is in an upcoming review. Let’s keep the Japanese theme, and revisit a car that will make you audibly groan as you read this: the Infiniti G37.
Come on, aren’t you just a little bit curious? They are cheap!
The 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe Journey vs the 2008 Mazda RX-8 Grand Touring
The early 2000s. What a time to be alive, especially if you were in your early twenties, like me. Unsure of what to do when it came to sports cars, many auto makers just gave up. There is no 2008 Toyota Supra, or Pontiac Firebird. And what did get resurrected wasn’t exactly what we remembered. 300ZX, or 350Z? Right, easy choice.
Fast forward to today, and we find that time has not been kind to these cars. Have you ever even seen a pure Infiniti G37, you know – sans fart muffler and ill-fitting body kit? Or a clean Mazda RX-8 – as in one that doesn’t leak more oil that the Valdez. Their Fisher Price interiors and gigantic curves have not aged well. And they aren’t yet old enough for nostalgia to kick in. Limbo? Maybe.
But you know what? They drove really well! The G37 had a grumpy V-6, rear-wheel drive, and a manual. The RX-8 had a sprightly chassis and a weird rotary engine. All that ancillary stuff buries the fact that these were fun cars. Parts are plentiful (and cheap), and the market is flooded. I wonder if they’d make a good daily…
The 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe Journey
I wasn’t lying, it’s not easy to find these unmolested.
- 88,800 miles
- Automatic (but they weren’t bad)
- Glacier Pearl over grey leather
- Clean CarFax
- A Stillen supercharger kit is installed, with over 400 horsepower
- Konig wheels (bleh), and a Stillen exhaust (that’s okay)
- Faded paint, curbed wheels, scratches – the usual for a G37 with age
- Bid to $6,800
Infiniti G37 values are usually pretty low – even the rarest IPL Coupes are in the mid twenties. But it’s more like the $10-$15k range for most. Sure, 90% have been modified in some way, but parts are so easy to find for these. It’s basically a Nissan kit car. And I promise, these were reasonably fast, with great steering feel and enough grip to get yourself in trouble.
But there is another.
The 2008 Mazda RX-8 Grand Touring
If I’m being honest, the RX-7 was an impossible act to follow. Look at one – it could be on sale today, the look is so incredible. The RX-8 was more…Dumpy?
- Canadian, so about 84,000 kilometers, or 52,000 miles
- Metropolitan Gray Mica over Cosmo Red Leather
- Non-collision damage reported on the CarFax, so most likely minor
- 40th Anniversary Edition, which added a sport-tuned suspension and Bilstein shocks
- Some scratches on the leather, and cracks in the airbag cover
- The Renesis two-rotor Wankel engine was rated at 232 horsepower and 159 lb-ft of torque
- No mods – just a MazdaSpeed intake
- Bid to uh…$88 bucks
I’m sure it’ll go for more of course, but I see mostly $6k – $12k, with a few breaking the $20,000 barrier. Just for your info, here’s an FD RX-7 that sold for nearly $100k. That’s bananas, and not just because of the color.
Will the RX-8 and Infiniti G37 ever get that high? No way – too many were built, and not enough were loved. But it’s not too late to love one now. Which 2000s-era coupe would you take?
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