I was wondering why Mazda indicates in many places that the 250hp is "targeted" or "provisional" for the 8.

I don't recall Nissan using those words for the Fairlady or Subaru for the WRX. The numbers stated on their sites, commercials, literature, etc., is what we got in the final versions. Could Mazda be over-promising us? It would be nice to keep our fingers crossed and hope they are under-promising us, but the last time I crossed my fingers for good news from Mazda was on Jan 7th... (^~^)

Between 247 and 250 I don't care.

It's purely for marketing purposes, specially in the states where people are so focused on numbers making the car.