The assistant manager of Mazda’s powertrain development division, Yoshiaki Noguchi, has acknowledged that the automaker still dreams about building a new rotary-powered sports car.
Mazda launched its first new rotary engine since the RX-8 in the new MX-30 R-EV just a few days ago but this rotary simply serves as a range-extender, a far cry from the high-revving rotary engines that we’ve all come to know and love. And, despite the company being in the midst of an electrification plan, it isn’t ruling out the possibility of launching a new rotary sports car in the future.
“Rotary is our symbol,” Noguchi told Autocar. “It’s a dream of engineers at Mazda to have a sports car with rotary. Now is not the time for that. When the company situation is a lot better [in regards to completing its roll-out of electrified models], we can think about that dream another time.”
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Noguchi added that significant improvements have been made to the rotary for use in the MX-30 R-EV, noting the carmaker focused on making it more efficient, reducing the weight, and improve reliability. It did so by implementing direct injection, using aluminum side housings, running a higher compression ratio of 11.9, and changing the thickness of the apex seal and applying a new coating.
Mazda program manager Wakako Uefuji added that a new rotary sports car is something that Mazda could introduce in the future.
“We need to keep the electrification of models for this era,” she said. “This is the first thing we do but maybe in the future.”
