Mazda to revive RX rotary next month

Mazda will begin the countdown to its long-awaited successor for the legendary RX-7 at the Tokyo motor show next month.

The first salvo in what's expected to be a drawn-out reveal and release campaign for the born-again rotary sports car was all but confirmed by Mazda's global marketing chief Masahiro Moro at the Frankfurt motor show today.

When asked the time-honoured question of when Mazda will reincarnate its iconic rotary sports car, perhaps badged as the RX-9, Moro told motoring.com.au: "Stay tuned... Are you coming to Tokyo motor show?"

Quizzed further, Moro said with a wry smile: "Rotary is always sticking with our heart. So are you coming to Tokyo motor show?

It's unclear exactly what form the RX concept will take at least two years away from the production model's launch, which is expected to occur at the next Tokyo show in 2017.

That year marks the 50th anniversary of Mazda's original Cosmo Sports rotary, although there's been speculation the reborn rotary may not become reality until 2020 -- Mazda's centenary year.

Either way, the RX concept's appearance at Tokyo, which other Mazda sources verified to motoring.com.au separately at Frankfurt, confirms a new-generation Mazda rotary will indeed become a reality.

Mazda has a history of unveiling concept cars that morph into reality but has long been wary of stirring up interest in a rotary performance car without being able to satisfy the hype.

Indeed, it has always said it would never give up development of the Wankel engine, but has never revealed how many engineers were working on its signature rotary technology at any given time.

"We have allocated some resources to keep developing the engine, but we have never allocated resources to rotary car development," Moro told us in November last year.

"At this moment our focus is on how we increase sales revenue with exciting models – that's our goal for the next two years. We need to make money to reinvest in rotary."

Apart from continuing to develop small stationary rotary engines for home power generation and a previous Mazda2-based range-extender EV prototype, Mazda has for years toyed with a 1.6-litre 16X rotary.

It produced about 225kW in naturally aspirated form and up to 335kW with a twin-scroll turbo – far more than the RX-8’s 177kW 1.3-litre 13B Renesis engine, which was plagued by excessive fuel and oil consumption, and mediocre mid-range torque.

But since then Mazda has signed a technology sharing deal with Toyota, which could see a born-again rotary coupe employ both Mazda's own SKYACTIV technology and plug-in hybrid technology from the world's largest car-maker to meet the company's performance, flexibility and efficiency targets.

As we've also reported, while the 'RX-9' was previously expected to be based on a stretched version of the new MX-5's compact rear-drive SKYACTIV platform, it's now understood to be underpinned by a heavily reinforced rear-drive version of the Mazda6 chassis.

Mazda released its first rotary-powered model in May 1967 and its iconic RX-7 in 1978, but the RX-7 was effectively replaced in 2002 by the RX-8, which was axed in 2012.

Image credit - Holiday Auto