lnbrown5981

Nah, you're not the only one . To me it looks like the modern interpretation of an FC.

HiWire

It looks like a Jaguar F-Type to me.

bajaman

yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

It
Will
Never
Happen

And, who wants a non-halo car, anyway? Let's face it, PERFORMANCE sells. NO ONE wants to buy a new 'sports/sporty' car that gets trounced by Edna's Ford Escape. Who'd buy a car that you had to slink away from every Camaro or Mustang...the V6 MODELS, lol!

It amazes me that these threads continue to actually build some sort of feeble hope with the masses.

austinramsay

Weak, if mazda even produces anything, it should at least be able to keep up with the bigger dogs. Make it blow the doors off an SS camaro or something haha. But really 250hp is not up to peoples standards for a performance car today. Mustang gt's pushing 420, taurus sho pushing over 380 with awd, shelby's pushing 650, etc. a 250hp car is noooot going to impress anyone besides soccer moms. I dont care about my mpg if its worth driving. If i did i wouldnt own an FD, or rx7 at all for that matter. Not saying mazda needs to build a supercar or anything here, just that they should make it worth it. 3 rotor with some ***** in a nice lightweight platform

thewird

iTrader: (8)

If they offer a 2 rotor turbo option or an N/A 3 rotor option I think the car will do fine personally. If there is no higher spec then 250 hp option, it will fail like the RX-8 again.

thewird

Bwarrrrrp

If I were Mazda exec, and I looked at rx8 sales and compared them with FD sales, in what way would I consider the 8 to be a failure? Throw into the mix glowing reviews from top gear and other journalists...

Cosmo_TT

iTrader: (11)

That sounds like the brz or frs, nice to have a light sporty rwd car but gutless and slow is no bueno..

$lacker

iTrader: (9)

It's easy to add power after the fact, especially if the engine is modular. It's very hard to add lightness, so that's where I hope they focus

Natey

iTrader: (19)

Holy Crap, they toned it down and it became the new Amemiya FD!!


...and bajaman has a good point. No LF-A / GTR fighter, no sale. Mazda has a lightweight underpowered little 2 seater. We need something to drool over.

Fritz Flynn

iTrader: (263)

If I was the mazda exec I wouldn't compare the RX8 to the RX7 in any way shape or form because it wasn't created with the same ideals and it's a vastly different car and although I do agree that it was a successful car I hope they support all there current models with significant biennial improvements because that's what it takes to compete in this very competitive auto market and the RX8 deserved better because it was not supported.

I don't consider the late model supra, 300zx or rx7 failures because of sales #s and any exec who's primary concern for building there top tier sports car is sales #s, well with all do respect that's a dude that shouldn't be managing the company. The mission statement for the RX7 should be to build the best possible sports car for the best possible price that's able to compete at an elite level in motorsports and they should race the car and improve it yearly. If the mission statement is to produce an affordable sports car that's fun to drive that everyone will want to own well you have that car and it's called the miata but just like the RX8 you've let it rest on it laurels for far too long.

Bottomline: from what I can tell the mazda exec is doing a good job with his sedans and ecos but I'd advise pulling his head out of his *** when it comes to sports cars because they shouldn't be developed and sold with the same mind set and if his stable of sports cars are really cool he'll sell a hell of lot more sedans.........so stop focusing on sales #s when it comes to your sports cars and have some effing fun.......JACK ***!!!!! You'll make us proud, you'll make your company proud and you may even win some races and make your homeland proud.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

It has more sales because its half the price of the FD new lol. The FD was overpriced at the time due to high Yen. Nobody wants an RX-8, it has no resell value. Meanwhile good condition turbo 2's, 1st gen's are reselling for more then an RX-8. Let's not even talk about FD's that sell for triple an RX-8's worth.

The only thing the RX-8 has going for it is it handles well and looks modern. But otherwise its a rusting Ford with an uneconomical engine that has issues and they're being scraped left and right. Who would want a car with no positives? People only bought the RX-8 because it seemed cool at the time and then sales fell like a rock through the years when people realized the car wasn't what it was hyped to be.

thewird

professor_speed

sub 3000lbs and 350+hp or don't bother, if its just going to be a mx-5 coupe with a 250hp rotary call it rx-5

thewird

iTrader: (8)

They're 1.6 300 hp engine would be fine also. WTF is a 1.2 unless its a 3 rotor (1.8). But as long as they offer a 1.2 turbo or an n/a 3 rotor, I'm fine with the cheaper engine.

thewird

fmzambon

My hope is that, if this value of 600cc per rotor has some truth to it, it was chosen due to the flexibility of being able to make both a 2 and a 3 rotor with sensible power output.
My guess is that, while a 2 rotor 16x at 300hp would be a good compromise between performance and sales, a 3 rotor version of that engine would turn out to be too powerful (selling only a handful of units worldwide).
Same thing with a turbo 16x, with all of the additional reliability problems and development costs.

Anyway I agree that having only the 250hp engine would be a mistake.

Andrea.

Bwarrrrrp

Horses for courses I guess. They are quite popular in Australia on the 2nd hand market, particularly for cashed up new drivers. Licencing laws make it one of the best cars available to new drivers which certainly helps.

I'm not convinced on anything regarding displacement. 1.2 is far more believable than 1.6 though.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

Actually the 1.6 is a lot more believable since Mazda already went through the trouble of designing a 1.6 specifically for a new rotary platform. Are you forgetting the 1.6X. The new 1.2 value has come from Autoweek which could be speculation or could be someone heard something from an exec. It's entirely likely when that the 1.6 didn't live up to the goals they were hoping for with their design changes. They're goals for that design was 50% more torque and 50% improvement in fuel economy. So they probably failed to hit those targets and decided to go back to the 1.2 instead.

thewird

fmzambon

Well, maybe 1.6 liters were enough before 2010. To keep up with the generalized power creep in the auto industry, the 300hp the 16x could reliably provide while meeting emission and fuel consumption targets might be too restrictive.
Thus the switch to the smaller rotors to allow for a 1.2 2 rotor and a 1.8 3 rotor, possibly replacing the 4 and 6 port versions of the 16x respectively.

As an added bonus, the smaller motor would be much more rev happy (we got words that the 16x was still a 9000rpm engine, so a smaller engine would have no trouble reaching 10000rpm, and maybe even more), and so it would also have an even higher specific power output. 250hp from a 1.2 is more than 200hp per liter, while 300hp from a 1.6 is less than that.

Just speculation, I know.

Andrea.

Spalato

iTrader: (33)

Guys I know we would all like to see a high HP FD successor, but I’m somehow pessimistic that Mazda can pull it off, not because of their ability, but because of the high emission standards and norms. I don’t know about the US but here in Europe the emissions norms are getting stricter every 4/5 years. In this year Europe is introducing the Euro 6 Norm.

Can Mazda make a 300+ HP rotary and pass the Euro 6 norm? If not right there they are losing a market of a half billion people.

And you can expect that by 2018 Europe will introduce the Euro 7 Norm…so if Mazda would want to sell a high power 300+HP rotary in 2017 in Europe they would have to not only satisfy Euro 6 but also the upcoming Euro 7…meh

Bwarrrrrp

So which is more believable?

ZDan

I love the FD. IMO, the worst move they made with it (aside from fragile interiors and inadequate cooling and reliability issues) was to not have a lower-priced ~200hp NA version. Even if they'd built that car and no 255hp turbo version, I still would have preferred it over the Z32, Supra, Corvette, etc. as my favorite 90s sports car.

A new 250hp 2800 lb (hopefully less) reasonably-priced 50/50 (or better) fixed-roof rwd sports car would be brilliant, and I'd probably buy one.

IMO, the market needs another SA RX-7 more than it needs a modern FD.

Of course I'm all for a 350/400hp multirotor or turbo version as well!

ZoomZoom

iTrader: (2)

I think we have seen the Rotary come to the end of its time
It was an interesting alternative engine design that had its place in history.

Possibly the same as the Steam engine but not nearly as popular or proven. Even that engine design gave way to progress.

Even if it can hold on another model or two I think it is destined to decline further into obscurity and surcumb to emissions and political mandates.

Even if you get another motor it looks to be marginalized and weak substitute for what it's enthusiasts really want.

HiWire

I hope Mazda will consider an aluminum turbo V4, then.

Porsche is using a V4 turbo hybrid in their 919 LMP1 car this year:

Porsche 919 Hybrid LeMans Racer to Feature 4 Cylinder Turbo, Batteries | The Truth About Cars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_919_hybrid

http://www.carthrottle.com/obsolete-...e-mythical-v4/

professor_speed

Mazda is out racing diesels not rotaries this will never happen. DX-7 perhaps?

Tem120

iTrader: (5)

rotary is very fuel inefficient because of loss of compression , the engine just does not SEAL as well as a piston engine . thats why Turbo's are not nearly as efficient in rotary's as in piston engines ... if said problem were resolved alot of the rotaries issues would go with it . emissions wise atleast. Then the problem remains being reliable


but if said issue was resolved it would mean much higher HP numbers as well ... and maybe its not a solution which can just be resolved from one day to another maybe it will take generations of the motors to try and refine .

lets look at piston engines in comparison . 20 years ago a V6 and V8s were gas guzzlers but through continuous research they have become what they are today . It didnt happen over night , there was a problem and it took multiple companies R&D to solve. The issue with tons and tons and TONS of backstabbing and Espionage crap. What you think its a coincidence that Direct fuel injection is all the rage now N days you think every car company just Up and came to the same conclusion ???.. No LOL . But the issue is with the rotary its not so easy as only one company is working on it vs 20 all around the globe .



So the rotary is Falling behind , because mazda cant steal other companies ideas ... basically ..

ZDan

VX-7! That would be cool.... See my post #932 here:
https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...016439/page38/

V4 could give a low hoodline and short wheelbase like the rotary, allow double-wishbone suspension (unlike the FR-S/BRZ flat-4), and would be somewhat novel in the automotive world. If they can't make the rotary meet emissions and/or fuel economy requirements (gov't and consumer demand), then I think that V4 would be a very interesting way to go for them...