No Mazda rotary sports car by 2020

Mazda rotary sports car fans will have to keep waiting for a belated successor for the legendary RX-7 and RX-8, judging by the latest comments from company execs.

Speaking to Australian journalists at this week’s Tokyo motor show, Mazda's senior managing executive officer and R&D chief Kiyoshi Fujiwara ruled out the release of a production version of the striking 2015 RX-VISION concept in 2020 – Mazda’s centenary year – as expected.

“We cannot provide the RX-VISION to the market by 2020, because we do not have enough money to invest, to commercialise it,” Fujiwara said.

Separately, Mazda’s managing executive officer in charge of Mazda’s Technical Research Centre Mitsuo Hitomi said that, hypothetically, for the RX-VISION to enter production in 2020 its design and engineering would need to be all but complete by now.

Hitomi-san said that development of a rotary sports car had not yet commenced, but confirmed that rotary engine development continues apace – and not just for the compact, single-rotor engine that will act as a generator in Mazda’s all-new rotary range-extender EV due in 2019.

Our sources say recent design patents for a deployable rear wing and swan wing doors are indeed related to a born-again RX model in which the rear wheels will be powered by a new-generation rotary engine.

In fact, Fujiwara-san confirmed that, given more time and resources, Mazda would release a new rotary sports car post-2020 and that it will be powered by an electrified rotary powertrain – at least in some markets.

He said the delay was due to Mazda’s development focus on its next-generation chassis and SKYACTIV-X engines and will necessitate the fitment of at least mild-hybrid and autonomous technologies to remain competitive and, indeed, applicable to some countries and cities that have proposed bans on non-electrified vehicles.

“If we achieve success [with SKYACTIV-X] probably we can have money enough to invest in the next challenge, then we can judge to go ahead,” said Fujiwara. “It’s going to be too late to make the RX-Vision for the centennial.

“But we have still been developing rotary engines as a sports car. Technology is going well but if we launch this kind of model later, we will have to add more technology to it, like autonomous driving, electrification…”

Fujiwara said that some markets could be offered a pure-rotary sports car and others an electrified version, but confirmed that in both cases the powertrain will be distinct from the rotary range-extender technology destined for Mazda’s first EV.

“[In] 2019 or 2020 we release the EV with range extender rotary engine -- this is completely a range extender unit. Because that is one of the merits of the rotary engine we have to utilise it for range extender. That is one of the rotaries.

“[But] Most of the rotary engine fans are still waiting for a sports car with the rotary engine, therefore we are still developing the rotary engine as a sports car. No range extender, no e-power,” Fujiwara said.

“However some cities will ban combustion, therefore we need some additional portion of electrification because the driver can’t use this rotary sports car.

“Some of the regions we don’t need this small electrification, therefore we can utilise pure rotary engines. We would have two versions -- it will be easy.”