This Sunday is all about the number 7, and what it means to hundreds of Canberrans

This Sunday marks the seventh day of the seventh month, and that means only one thing to the world’s Mazda owners.

It’s 7’s Day, or the opportunity to celebrate the iconic RX-7 sports coupe and its idiosyncratic (and – let’s be honest – often broken) rotary engine. There are car meets in cities all over the world, including here in Canberra.

Canberra 7’s Day, presented by local owners’ group MazdACT, is coming back for the seventh time this Sunday. And there’s extra cause for celebration this year.

Organisers had no trouble getting about 150 RX-7s – as well as Mazda MX-5s, Nissan Skylines and Toyota MR2s – from across the ACT and beyond to gather in the car park at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) campus in Fyshwick last year.

More than 500 people turned out to see them, including ambassador Kazuhiro Suzuki from the Embassy of Japan and ACT Government MLA Tara Cheyne. It caught the attention of Mazda Australia too, who sent representatives to cover it.

“Last year was an outstanding success,” organiser Rob Taylor said.

“Although there was no formal count, we estimated over 500 attendees last year, a record attendance for our event, and are hoping to exceed that this year.”

The event also served as launch site for a petition to the ACT Government, asking for it to approve a new type of numberplate designed to fit in the taller and wider space on many cars imported direct from Japan.

And, after more than 500 signatures, the government agreed in February.

The Access Canberra team advised Rob the “already full work program” means it’s unlikely the new Japanese-style plates will be available before 2025, but he’s just relieved he and other RX-7 owners won’t have to modify their bumpers to make the standard ACT plates fit anymore.

Rob began like most RX-7 owners, hooked from a young age by watching Japanese street racing shows like Initial D, which stars an RX-7 in ‘Competition Yellow Mica’.

It’s a very similar colour to the one Rob owns today, a special 2002 ‘Bathurst R’ model he imported from Japan. This commemorates the RX-7’s victory in the Bathurst 12-hour race, with three consecutive wins between 1992 and 1994.

“This came up at the right time and the right price, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ve gotta have it’,” Rob said.

The RX-7 was born in 1978, after Mazda took the rotary ‘Wankel’ engine it had perfected in the Cosmo Sport and shoehorned it into the front of a two-door coupe.

Where other internal-combustion engines employ pistons that punch side to side or up and down as the fuel and air mixture explodes, a rotary essentially employs one piston, which ‘rotates’ inside one cylinder. There’s no doubt it was innovative and, once the kinks had been ironed out, offered more power and less vibration in a smaller, flatter package.

Rob and his wife have hosted Canberra 7’s Day for six years so far, and “wouldn’t dream of bowing out”.

“Community support for our event has been overwhelming. People have been really keen to get involved, share their ideas, and show their support,” he said.

“Launching our petition last year and having that be a success with the expectation that JDM number plates will be hitting the ACT in 2025 is such a big indicator of how strong the community is when it comes together,” he said.

Highlights this year include guest appearances by Maisie Place, who races in the national RX-8 Cup Series – she’ll be bringing along two of her racecars – and a “special envoy” from the United States Embassy on behalf of US ambassador Caroline Kennedy.

Canberra 7’s Day runs from 10 am to 3 pm, Sunday, 7 July. Entry is free, but the event is raising donations for local support organisations Menslink and Fearless Women. Vans from Phat Boy Burgers and Floating Coffee by the Rivers will sell food and drinks on the day.

Visit the Canberra 7’s Day 2024 event listing on Facebook for more information.