As is the case with press photos and press events, you only get to see and are only allowed to take photos of what the manufacturer wants you to. That’s why we’d not seen shots of what the new Mazda MX-5 / Miata was like under the hood, how its engine looked and was positioned.
These fuzzy first photos show a unit with fairly little plastic cladding, proudly bearing the SKYACTIV inscription.
We don’t know which unit it actually is, though it’s most likely a two-liter four-pot – some say it could be a detuned two and a half liter, but that just seems a bit off for an all-new MX-5 in this day and age. Power-wise, it should make at least 155 hp (Mazda3/6/CX-5 rating), though closer to 170 is more realistic.
In fact, we’d go so far as to say it’d more likely be a sub-two liter unit, instead of a larger one – Mazda could extract more power out of their 1.5-liter, make it produce more than the 100 hp it currently musters.
Via AutoWeek
Photo Gallery
