Mazda‘s highly anticipated concept destined for the Tokyo Motor Show seems as though it will rekindle the spirit of its older, rotary-powered sports cars.
Details have been thin so far and up until now, Mazda only suggested it had a team of engineers working on rotary engines. As Kiyoshi Fujiwara, Mazda’s head of research and development, points out to Autocar, the automaker’s upcoming concept is bringing rotary back.
“People think rotary cannot meet modern eco demands,” Fujiwara told Autocar. “The SkyActiv engineers worked on rotary and have … cutting-edge tech. It is an essential part of our DNA and it just … passed onto our future engineers. It’s synonymous with the brand. Some time in the future, it will return and be called SkyActiv-R.”
Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai bills the two-door, two-seat concept as a “pure sports car design” that will fill the void left behind by the RX-8, which was axed in 2012 in light of increasingly strict emissions standards.
Although a launch date is still under wraps, Mazda design head Ikuo Maeda says the concept “represents our dream, but we don’t want it to be a dream for too long.” The original RX-7 will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2018, so it wouldn’t be outrageous to expect the dream to come true in just under three years.
