No, Virginia, There Isn’t a Rotary Sports Car
Bummer
Ever since Mazda revealed its gorgeous RX-VISION concept, fans of its line of RX rotary-engined cars have understandably lost their minds in excitement at the news that the Zoom Zoom brand still was working on its Wankel engines.
Almost immediately, speculation was rampant that Mazda would be reviving the RX line, with the latest example of these rumors coming from Japanese car magazine Holiday Auto, who said that the board of directors had formally approved a rear-wheel-drive rotary sports car with a 1.6-liter turbo SKYACTIV-R engine, to show up by 2020.
Well, it turns out that that was just a very specific lie, because due to this over-excited rumor-building (or blatant making up of news, depending on the case), Mazda Motor Corp. CEO Masamichi Kogai has needed to step into the role of a doting boyfriend who doesn’t want his significant other to get too excited for a gift that they can’t afford on Christmas.
In an interview with Automotive News, Kogai had to let us down easy, telling us that, before this goes any further, there are no plans to bring a new sports car at all, much less a rotary one, to the world.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that rotaries are entirely out. The far more likely avenue for rotary engines to come back, then, would most likely be as a range-extending motor for Mazda’s upcoming electric car options, which will help the automaker comply with zero-emission mandates.
So, if you were expecting to roll out in your new Soul Red RX-9, then that’s a bummer. However, at least the rotary engine is still being developed.
News Source: Automotive News
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