Clinically programming cutting-edge prototype Jaguars by day helped Sean Malone design blueprints for his millimetre-perfect Rocket Bunny RX-7. And by gosh has he nailed the finished product!
You know what those annoying philosophical people like to say: fail to prepare; prepare to fail. But, as irritating as it sounds, it’s an ethos that certainly seems to work. And it rings particularly true in our owner Sean’s line of work here – a man who’s tasked with signing off seriously important blueprints for Jaguar and Land Rover’s latest models.
With so much thought going into his job, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that Sean’s work philosophy was directly transferred over to his latest project car when it was time to put it under the knife for a bit of bodywork recently. And as the end result is so damn stunning, we think you’ll agree this time at least, it was worth all of that gruelling groundwork…
This stonking RX-7 isn’t Sean’s first foray into rotary fun either, as we discovered when he explained his car history to us: “I’ve had cars ranging from a Mk2 Golf through to a Fiat Grande Punto,” he delves into his previous four-wheeled antics. “I picked up an RX-8, when I was just 22, which I still have now! It’s now got a welded diff and stripped interior and is used for drift days.”
Falling in love with the Wankel’s unique noise and smooth power delivery through this futuristic looking beast, it was only a matter of time before Sean began delving deeper into the rotary back-catalogue for something arguably even more impressive.
“I picked up the RX-7 in early 2016,” Sean continues. With a freshly rebuilt twin-turbo motor in the tidy bay up front, along with notably clean bodywork for its age, he was able to see through this fresh import’s questionable bodykit to a car that was clearly extremely well looked after back in the land of the rising sun. “I knew I’d be freshening up the bodywork in some way anyway, so it wasn’t really an issue,” he explains, quick to put a deposit down on the car he’d been dreaming about since the days of Need for Speed Underground 2.
Although always intended to be a long-term project, Sean admits he didn’t plan to go too extreme after taking collection of his tasty coupé. “I began looking at the likes of BN Sports bodykits straight away, and never thought I’d be able to pull off a Rocket Bunny project myself,” he admits. Sean initially thought getting his hands on and fitting one of these super-rare, bang-on-trend JDM wide-body packages was going to be more hassle than it was worth. “But then my friend Tobi told me he had a link to someone who could supply me with a kit, and the Rocket Bunny seed was planted in my head.”
Things moved quickly once the first steps were taken, meaning the multi-piece kit was laid out in his back garden just a few weeks later, with Sean super-excited…
Want to know more? Check out the full feature on Sean’s Rocket Bunny RX-7 in Fast Car magazine issue 388 on sale now in all good shops, the Fast Car online shop or alternatively download Fast Car magazine 388 now.
