Seven’s Day Manila 2023: A Laidback Meet for All Things Rotary

Each year, 7/7 is a highly anticipated date by many worldwide. To others, it’s a date to buy goods on sale from Shopee or Lazada. But for gearheads, July 7 is known as 7’s day – a day to celebrate all things rotary.

You’ve probably seen the celebration of 7’s Day in Japan at Fuji Speedway, Daikoku PA, and other venues on social media. But you might be more familiar with the Prime NYC 7’s Day celebration held in Times Square. Here in Manila, the celebration of 7/7 is a bit more laid back, at least for this year.

Rather than hosting a bigger meet, the rotary owners in Manila decided to have a small hang-out near Banawe to celebrate 7’s Day. Heck, not all of the rotary guys were present either. Only five rotary-powered cars showed up – four FD RX7s and one lone RX8. From what I was told, they were missing two or three more FDs as well as other Mazda friends.

The most popular of the bunch is Gold’s RE-Amemiya FD3S. We’ve already done a full feature of this car before, which you can read on the site from our previous 7’s day coverage. It still looks great after all these years, and you really can’t go wrong with the RE-Amemiya kit paired with a set of RPF1s.

Although there’s word going around that the car might undergo a makeover in the near future. With that, this might be one of the last times we will see this RX7 wearing the RE-Amemiya kit.

One FD that we haven’t seen in a while is Stephen’s Feed RX7. It wears a full Feed kit from Shine Auto minus the GT-Wing, paired with an era-correct set of Enkei RP03.

He told us that he hasn’t driven the car in two years since the lockdowns. Surprisingly though, it started immediately and ran well even after being in storage. Just goes to show if you build the rotary well enough it should be reliable. Again emphasis on “should”.

Of course, Aurick’s RX7 is always present at a 7’s Day event here in Manila.

Coming all the way from Cavite is JR with his yellow Zenki FD. Unlike the other FDs, this one is mostly stock both inside and out apart from a set of wheels and a GT wing. What surprised is that he arrived with three people inside. We’re curious how the third person held up in the second row of an RX7 considering there’s barely any space there.

The lone RX8 at this year’s 7’s day meet is owned by Andy. It continues to sport the full Mazdaspeed kit, but he’s decided to go back to the stock mirrors in place of the Ganadors. While it might be N/A, the Renesis on this RX8 sounds really nice.

Overall, it was a chill meet for 7’s Day in Manila. Lito, the guy who built a good number of rotaries for the guys, was also present despite selling his FD years back. Our group of friends who enjoy all things cars also showed up to support the meet.

As always, props to these guys for keeping their rotary cars alive and running despite the challenges of owning one in the Philippines.

Hopefully next year, Aurick and the guys will be able to organize a bigger celebration together with other JDM cars. Maybe if we have enough budget, we’ll try to hit up New York or Japan to check out their version of 7’s Day.

Words & Photos by Jose Altoveros