RX-7 Due in 2012 or 2013 : http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mazda-rx7/ke344.html

 

Not a fan of the styling, but you never could grow on me if the car is produced.

 

Agreed , "Rotordad", you know by now I'm a vert person,,, So, I say , to the Mazda Personal, Designing Team, get on the stick and create a Rotary RX-7 Convertible , built, preferablly with a hard top convertible, like almost all your competitors have , including your own Mazda Miatas have, but if can't ,,, still come out with a convertible , PLEASE...

 

um.. are you from the past?

 

"SirCygnus" What part of the tittle: "Old News, but still motivates," this post is more so for the newbies, anyhow...

 

oh man, that looks pretty sick. too bad you cant put a deposit down on one just yet.. lol

 

The next rotary powered car will definitely be built by Mazda as a 2012 model. They have already announced the 2011 RX8 will be the last of that model, and being there has never been a break between rotary cars (except 1992, sort of), then 2012 makes since.

With that said, will it make it to the US? we could have another scenerio like we had in 1992, we had to wait an extra year befor the FD hit dealers, but 1991 FC's were still for sale on the lots. There could be left over 2011 RX8's for sale untill late 2012, and the RX7 or RX9 could be a 2013. Who knows? As far as a convertible, it will never happen. Mazda has way too much success with the MX-5 and would never build a vert to compete with it. The only reason the 90 and 91 RX7 verts even exist is because it had already been built and tooling had been in use for 2 years prior to the Miata being released.

No matter what happens, if the next rotary car is a pure coupe, count me in! But if it looks anything like an RX8, forget about it. ****, just build a new RX3 loosely based on an updated MX-3 of the 90's with rwd, now that would be a fun car.

 

"Wild Bill Massey" , Thanks for being informative .

 

man i hope the new rx7 doesn't look like those prototypes. in my head it needs to be/ remain
1. SMALL
2. lightweight
3. turbo'd
4. 3 rotor?
5. fun
i hope they step it up in the power department for sure, because all these new sports cars/ mussle cars have a ton of power, the 2011 gt mustang is going to have 412 whp...... i think i figured that my car which is considerably lighter would need 330whp to hang with it.

 

a 300+ production rotary will not happen. Think emissions.

 

A turbocharged rotary will never happen again. Not after the FD. Basically it needs to be a hardtop Miata with a 16X. It would handle excellent, have enough power to put alot of smile on your face, and it should get decent fuel economy for a rotary.

 

I just hope Mazda's barfy "Nagare" experiment is over before the next rotary sports car arrives, if it ever arrives in America. That weird, random-looking sculpting on the sides is going to look dated about a month after the first cars hit the streets.

As for the reason the '90 and '91 RX-7 convertibles existed, I think Mazda could not predict how successful the MX-5 Miata would be out of the gate. I'm sure they never imagined that it would more or less completely overshadow the RX-7 in terms of sales volume.

I'd like to see the 2012 or 2013 RX be affordable, light and simple, but I'm sure Mazda is reluctant to have it competing directly with the MX-5. For that reason, it will probably need to be more of a luxury GT-type product.

 

With regard to a rotary convertible, there are lots of rumors to that effect.... but probably not what you are thinking.

Supposedly the next MX-5 will have a one rotor hybrid motor option.

 

i would not mind a 16x rotary miata.

 

if the new RX-7 is anything like the concept cars depicted, it will lose a lot of its design charactor. i'm not a huge fan of Mazda'a "smiley face" front end designs. all three generations of the RX-7 were uniquely designed in their own right and were completely different looking than any of the other cars that Mazda produced. going with a design similar to the RX-8 would give the car character, but not its own character. Mazda's cars look too much alike in today's times and there is nothing styling wise that sets them drastically apart. the RX-7 was always Mazda's flagship car and one that the company was proud of in many regards and should retain its status by being designed independantly.

 

So someone was telling me the new Rotary powered car from Mazda will be a direct injected 2 rotor with 300hp and 280tq... Any merit to this or was the guy making stuff up?

 

I agree 100% with your comments. I don't like the smiley face at all. I was wondering if I was just being a grumpy old guy about this; it's nice to have some reinforcement.

Weirdly though, when the FC came out I thought it's styling was bland and derivative of the 944, Camaro, Daytona, etc. Its looks only began to grow on me after it had been around about 10 years, and after I owned one.

 

Well, the 16X will be a direct injected, all aluminum, 2 rotor but horsepower, torque, and MPG figures are still unknown. Granted, the "smiley face" isn't the most asthetically pleasing but if you look at other cars, you can see others have faces to them as well. And you guys can't honestly look at the Mazda 2/Demio and say it's a bad looking car. If the new car were to be another flagship, it can't be a luxury/GT car, otherwise it might as well have stayed the RX-8 since that's what that was. I think instead of attacking the Mustang/Camaro/370Z class, it should be inexpensive and light shooting more for the ever emerging compact RWD class with the FT-86 from Toyota and Subaru.

 

 

wow that looks great. to bad no one can get in it lol

 

The advantages of positioning the car as a luxury GT-type car is that it wouldn't cannibalize sales of the MX-5 Miata, and the inevitably bad gas mileage would be less of an issue for more affluent buyers. If the car is cheap and light, it's going to be expected to also be thrifty to run, or it will only appeal to hard-core rotary fans. Cheap only makes sense if this is a high volume car or Mazda won't recoup the tooling and R&D costs for the new engine. If the car needs to appeal to a huge demographic in this economic climate, it needs to be really efficient. A higher price tag would allow Mazda to recover its investment with smaller sales numbers, and Mazda won't have to suddenly start cranking out massive numbers of the next generation rotary engine right away. I think it will probably end up being a competitor to the 370Z or even a little higher priced than that. 370Z buyers don't care about gas mileage so much, whereas Scion tC and Mini Cooper buyers do.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be way more likely to buy it if it's cheap, light and fast rather than sort of quick, expensive and luxurious.

 

Well what many articles have stated in the last couple years is that the next gen rotary aims to bring back the spirit of the 1st gen: a cheap light sports coupe to have fun with. I would prefer it to be a such mainly so I could afford one haha. IMO I doubt Mazda will bring it as an STI/370z competitor, and especially not a GTR/Corvette competitor.

Also, with the way it sounds I bet this thing will get an average MPG from 25-30. Similar to the Mini Cooper S, Civic SI, Mx-5, FT86, etc. etc...

 

I'm in for a lower cost, more power & light weight over the comfort of todays luxury sports cars & thier cost.

 

That would be great, but I'll believe it when I see it. The RENESIS was supposed to get that kind of mileage too before it actually entered production.

 

Unfortunately, what you just described is what the RX-8 is. Poor sales because of it being overpriced, underpowered, and not efficient enough coupled with the current Renesis not meeting EuroV emissions standards, are the reasons the RX-8 will be ceasing production after the 2011 model year. Mazda doesn't make the same mistake twice. This is the same reason they've never made another FD like RX-7. Don't get me wrong, I love the RX-8 and would gladly take one for a Daily Driver over my Kia any day, but others wouldn't feel the same