2022 Mazda RX-7 rendered

The next-generation Mazda RX sports car is one of the most anticipated sports car of the decade – nay, millennium – yet is still very much vapourware.

But in a parallel universe where development budgets are plentiful and Mazda's bean-counters put low-volume, loss-making products before high-volume cash cows, this is how its next tyre-shredding coupe could look.

Dubbed the 2022 Mazda RX-7, this bold render was created by Enoch Gonzales, an industrial designer from the Philippines.

Inspired by the current-generation (ND) Mazda MX-5, particularly the brake light design at the rear, it also has hints of the last (FD) Mazda RX-7 turbo rotor sports car whose production run ceased in 2002.

With a tip of the hat to the Mazda RX-8, the design certainly has a Mazda look and feel, despite lacking the curvaceous aggression of 2015's Mazda RX-Vision concept car, designed and built in-house by the Japanese car brand.

Rusted-on Mazda enthusiasts are praying for an all-new Mazda RX-9 that's been speculated endlessly, thanks in no large part to Mazda's own machinations.

When the brand creates show cars like the aforementioned RX-Vision concept that took the 2015 Tokyo motor show by storm, it gave hope to legions of rotary fans.

Mazda is yet to confirm the existence of a new flagship performance vehicle of any kind, whether that's a hardcore MPS or MazdaSpeed-badged version of an existing model like the Mazda3 or Mazda6, or a bespoke rotary sports car like the machine pictured here.

There's every chance the fifth-gen Mazda MX-5 NE will be the brand's next (and only) sports car, as is currently the case.

While an all-new Mazda sports car is still in limbo, a recent report suggested that the RX-9 could become the MX-9, powered not by a rotary engine but by 335kW turbocharged version of the brand's upcoming inline six-cylinder petrol engine.