Great news that the rotary engine won 1st place in the internationall jugdeging for the best engine 44 out of 50 internationall jugdges voting it number 1. The down side is when your friends want to view this wonderfull engine ,and when you lift up the aluminium bonnet all they will get to see is a lot of plastic covers ,and no engine , i believe this is a mistake by mazda hiding the engine ,visual appeal plays an important role in the cars appeal to a lot of punters including myself. Does anyone know the reason behind the hidding of the rotary ,surely it could be visualy more appealling.

Originally posted by Lock & Load
Great news that the rotary engine won 1st place in the internationall jugdeging for the best engine 44 out of 50 internationall jugdges voting it number 1. The down side is when your friends want to view this wonderfull engine ,and when you lift up the aluminium bonnet all they will get to see is a lot of plastic covers ,and no engine , i believe this is a mistake by mazda hiding the engine ,visual appeal plays an important role in the cars appeal to a lot of punters including myself. Does anyone know the reason behind the hidding of the rotary ,surely it could be visualy more appealling.

It's because of where it is. The engine is so small it can fit virtually back under the dashboard thereby giving 50:50 weight distribution. There's not a lot to see under the bonnet so they spruced it up with plastic panels to at least give the vague impression that there's something in there somewhere...

You don't have to leave that cover on...

I said the same thing when I first saw the car, however, at Mazda the other day the pre-production car had the cover off.

Apparently just a couple of screws.

:D

So if the engine is so small and far back, what the heck is taking all that space under the bonnet? What hidden under those big pieces of plastic?

battery cover is huge, intake box is huge, fuse box is there too... all in front of the engine.

it actually looks very crowded... they probably did that deliberately to make people feel like mazda had "packed" it all in.

The 3d chassis diagrams appear to indicate a fairly substantial series of crumple zones and energy absorbers

see below