Mazda RX Vision

Mazda RX Vision

  • Posted on: 20/02/2016
  • By: Author

Mazda wowed the home crowd with the new RX-Vision concept car at the 2015 Tokyo show. It's a rotary engined sports car lending substance to rumours that the Japanese are poised to bring back the RX-7 sports car before the end of the decade as a mass market alternative to the Porsche Cayman. Powered by a Skyactiv-R rotary petrol engine, it's proof that Mazda hasn't given up on its Wankel engineering obsession. Development has continued and the RX Vision suggests that it could make a comeback in production guise as early as 2017, a neat half century since it first launched the first rotary-engined model.

Mazda RX-Vision

The company first sold a rotary engine in the 1967 Cosmo Sport 110S, and reached its sales peak with the popular RX-7 which found 800,000 owners between 1978 and 2002. It even enjoyed success on track, winning the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1991 with the rotary-engined 787B.

Mazda RX-Vision

The last rotary Mazda, the RX-8 which was pensioned off in 2012, was a pleasingly oddball sports coupe, with suicide doors, a peachy Wankel engine and a penchant for spanking through barrels of oil and spare parts. Mazda must refine its SkyactivR application before any comeback but engineers are confident they can improve the smooth spinning formula and improve the fuel consumption. A target power output of around 300bhp is likely in production guise, although no specific figures have been issued for the RX Vision concept car.

Mazda RX-Vision

The RX is a classic concept car profile, stretching out the two door, rear wheel drive sports car silhouette with a cartoonishly long bonnet and a firmly cab backwards stance. It's hunkered down low and at nearly 4.4m long this occupies the same footprint as a Jag F type, with more than a hint of Italianate proportions. In fact, from some angles you can squint and see a hint of Maserati, not Mazda.

Mazda RX-Vision

But the classic Mazda grille and light treatments, not to mention the Kodo style red paint, mean this is all Mazda. The company is dropping hints that it'll build something like this in the years ahead as a slightly smaller, cheaper alternative to the Porsche Cayman and Boxster twins. Top brass at Tokyo have confirmed that rotary power is set to return. And check out the official statement issued today at the Tokyo motor show.

Mazda RX-Vision

'An exquisitely proportioned front-engine, rear-wheel drive model, the RX-Vision represents a “vision” of the future that could only come from Mazda,' the company's blurb states. 'And one that countless fans of the brand around the world hope will become a reality.'

Original published at "carmagazine" website.

Mazda RX-Vision

Mazda RX-Vision

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