- Mazda’s design boss recently confirmed that the 2023 Iconic SP Concept will go into production.
- Nakayama didn’t give an exact timeframe, saying only that we’d see it in the “not-so-distant future.”
- The 2023 concept had 365 hp of battery power and a rotary range extender.
Mazda wasn’t just teasing us. We now know from comments made by the Japanese automaker’s design boss that last year’s Iconic SP concept car, or some form of it, will make it to showrooms.
Masashi Nakayama stopped short of giving an ETA for the car, opting to leave us guessing by saying that it would go into production in the “not-so-distant future.” That phrase is open to interpretation, but we take it to mean it’ll be on the street within three years.
Related: Mazda Confirms Iconic SP Sports Coupe For Production
But what kind of powertrain do you think it will have, and is that the same one you’d choose if you were heading up the engineering team? The Iconic SP concept put Mazda’s rotary tech back into the spotlight, but unlike the late, great RX-7, the SP doesn’t use rotary power to drive the wheels directly. Instead, the bi-rotor combustion engine charges a battery pack which drives the wheels, a bit like the setup on Mazda’s range-extender MX-30.
Mazda claims the electric motors produce a relatively modest (by performance EV standards) 365 hp (272 kW / 370 PS) and that the rotary engine can be adapted to run on carbon-neutral fuel, chopping emissions by as much as 90 percent. The automaker also confirmed that the powertrain was not just motor show razzmatazz, telling us that a rotary-powered project would be on sale once “technical hurdles” were overcome.
Rotary engines seem like a great option for range extenders because they spin smoothly – Audi showed just such a range extender concept, the A1 E-Tron, in 2011. But the way we see it, traditional Mazda fans hoping for a something that feels like an old RX-7 are going to be disappointed by what is essentially an EV with a rotary generator.
We’re guessing many of you would like to see Mazda flip the idea on its head and produce a sports car in which the wheels are driven directly by a rotary engine, but one with hybrid electrical assistance to help make more torque and cut fuel consumption and emissions. Or maybe you’d like to see something totally different under the SP’s hood – though looking at how low it is, your combustion options might be limited to boxer engines.
This is all presuming Mazda brings the SP to market as a modern interpretation of the RX-7 that went out of production in 2002. But the other possibility is that the SP was giving us a sneak look at the styling of the next MX-5. That would make sense of the lowish power figure, though the MX-5 is unlikely to go down the EV route, and will almost certainly move to hybrid power instead. In which case, perhaps the range-extender rotary engine will turn up in a totally different car.
But that’s all conjecture. What we know for sure is that Mazda is going to sell a car that looks like the Iconic SP, and what we want to know is what you think should be under the hood. Leave a comment below and give us your thoughts.
