https://www.clubprotege.com/forum/ vBulletin Forums en Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:08:18 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://www.clubprotege.com/forum/ https://www.clubprotege.com/forum/forum/mazda-323-bf-1986-1989/bf-worklogs/1407114-my-bfmr-from-japan-and-now-in-the-uk Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:54:23 GMT
Its been a long time since I posted on this forum. I originally joined around 15 years ago when I bought my first 323 turbo, a 1989 black "TWR" edition, and my original project posts can be found here: https://www.clubprotege.com/forum/fo...ct-from-the-uk

Unfortunately life got in the way of progress, marriage, 3 kids and a house move meant it stalled, and then stopped for good. The 323 lived in my dad garage for many years. gathering dust. I never wanted to get rid of it, saying one day I would get it back on the road. It was very stripped down, but everything was still there, and I had gathered spares and other upgraded parts.

Fast forward to Dec 2024, my dad has sold his house, and the 323 needs to move. I was lucky enough to find a council garage close to my home (not an easy thing to do around my way) so the 323 was rolled out of the garage for the first time since December 2008!



Loaded up:


And in to its new home:


I was determined to pick up the project and finish it, but there were a few parts I needed. I was not happy with the previous rust repairs, and there were some other parts (some body panels, bushes, brake dust shields etc.) that I wanted to get hold of from Mazda.

I was very busy (as usual!) so a few months passed by, and I was lucky enough to find myself in Japan last summer. I walked into a Mazda dealership in suburban Tokyo, and thanks to Google translate, tried to order some parts. The people there were very accommodating, but sadly they confirmed that from my list of approx. 20 parts, only 2 were available to order, everything else was NLA.

This was not the final nail in the coffin, I could still get my car fixed, but it would require a lot of fabrication, and custom parts to be made.

A few more months passed by, and I noticed not 1, but 2 BF's for sale in the UK. They were both imported from Japan (so hopefully rust free!) but the asking prices were high, and they had been advertised for a while.

My man maths logic was, if i made them an offer, one of these cars would be a better prospect as a project, and I could use my original UK 323 as a spares car, and sell on some parts I don't need to recoup the additional cost of a "new" car.

So I went to see both. They were being sold by a dealer in Bradford that specialises in importing cars from Japan. They remembered that these Mazdas were somewhat popular, but still rare, in the UK around 20/30 years back, so thought they would be bring a couple over.

One was a pre-facelift in 2 tone silver/dark grey. It had a glass sunroof, air suspension, A/C. cruise control (all not available in the UK and steel wheels. The miles were high, but it was immaculate under the bonnet and drove really well. It was clearly well looked after and cherished. But there was some minor structural rust that put me off a little.

The second looked good in the adverts, was a facelift in white, it also had air suspension and A/C. but had no sunroof (a massive plus, as pretty much all UK 323's with sunroofs were rotten) and low miles (just 44,000). With my car also being a facelift, this was the one I actually wanted.

However when I went to see it, the condition was not great. The paint was badly faded, to the point there was rust coming through in many places. Under the bonnet was not as clean as the pre-facelift, and the dashboard was split badly. It has many signs of sun damage. from the glass to the interior and trims. It was clear this car had not been used much for many years in Japan, and it needed a lot of work.

The test drive was not great either, the battery as flat, and once charged up there was a loud buzzing noise under the dash, and it ran terribly, kept cutting out going uphill, and the gearchange was like stirring porridge!

But, there was something about it. It was fundamentally a solid car. It was all there, and the rust was superficial rather than structural, and it was all there and a non-sunroof model was a big plus in my book too.

The dealer would not budge much on price. So we left empty-handed. In the meantime they had fixed the running issues, turns out the fuel pump was clogged, so they cleaned the tank and put a new fuel pump and filter in to fix it.

I called him back a few weeks later, and agreed a slightly lower price. It was still a little more than I wanted to pay, but the market for cars like these in the UK is pretty much non-existent, so heart won over head, but I don't regret it!

So at the end of October last year I got my second 323! Here are some pics:





The plan is to fully strip it down and build it back better (just like I wanted to do on my black one...)

This is going to be a slow project, but I already have some updates and incidents to share!

Will post more tomorrow!




]]> BF WorkLogs IH786 https://www.clubprotege.com/forum/forum/mazda-323-bf-1986-1989/bf-worklogs/1407114-my-bfmr-from-japan-and-now-in-the-uk