Sports cars automakers have ascended the auto industry’s ladder to become some of the most popular and consumer friendly in the whole world.
Mazda’s announcement that it is showing off a mysterious “sports car concept” at the Tokyo auto show desperately cries out for someone, anyone to label the car the next RX-7, there’s no evidence to support that. Sure, the shadowy picture certainly appears to show a car that’s larger than the MX-5 Miata, and its taillights could echo those of the third-generation RX-7. But that’s only speculation.
Or maybe it’s not.
Mazda’s own CEO seemed to indicate no work on a rotary-powered sports car was underway last year, but maybe things have changed, and just look at the concept! It’s long, low, and has the potential to be impossibly gorgeous. From our limited perspective, the mystery show car resembles the result of a tryst between the Maserati Alfieri and the Miata. But that’s not necessarily a surprise, as every vehicle Mazda’s designers have turned out in the past three years has been attractive.
What’s perhaps less obvious is that Mazda continues to work on the rotary engine, toiling away on the smooth-running, high-revving, pistonless powerplant design to make it return decent fuel economy and emissions. Have the company’s notoriously clever engineers finally figured out a way?
