Sade is a rotary head? Actually, yes!
If you’re both a car enthusiast and a fan of the singer/songwriter best known as Sade, I just found out a bit of pub trivia you’ll love.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn Smith and Sniff Podcast #57 (May 16, 2021) a listener named Ian Miles wrote in via e-mail informing the hosts that, as an Auto Parts store owner in Gloucestershire (which happens to be where Sade lives) he’s personally sold Sade auto parts and knows what car Sade drives!
The Sade segment starts 50 minutes in.
“I live in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire and she (Sade) lives a few miles away,” Miles writes.
“I have often served Helen-Sade, she owns a dark, Maroon red Mazda RX-8, and buys top quality two-stroke oil to put in.”
Mazda never made an RX-8 in Maroon, but the closest color to maroon, at least in the shade/absence of sun (which, to be fair, is a lot of the times in England) is the 2006 Mazda RX-8 Shinka (Special Edition) in Cooper Red.
If you didn’t already know, it’s a common and recommended practice for Mazda owners with rotary engines to add 2-stroke oil to their gas tank, at a ratio of something like 100:1.
The added lubrication apparently keeps the apex, corner, and side seals well lubricated, essential to Rotary engine reliability.
“Her husband did the Sohn adapter kit conversion to enable it to have an oil reserve rather than pre-mixing it with the gas.”
A Sohn adapter kit is an aftermarket oil reserve and injection system meant to replace Mazda using dirty engine oil as the source of oil for its rotary oil metering pump with a ready and fresh supply of engine oil,in this case, 2-stroke oil, from a supplementary reservoir,
Skeptical that Miles was telling the truth, the hosts replied for more info, probing Miles even further, to which he replied back,
“She’s been coming to my shop for 10 years…Stonehouse Autoparts, it’s on a petrol station four quart bridge service station. She’s well known to the girls that serve in there, she’s always polite, and most people don’t realize who she is.”
The Auto parts store in question.
“The Mazda conversation was five years ago, but I’ve seen her filling it up quite a few times since.”
So, if you’re ever in the Gloucestershire area and spot a dark, red Mazda RX-8, there’s a good chance it’s Sade behind the wheel.
H/T – @imtylerhill
