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Well it is Mazda's 100th Year of making 'cars' (inc 3 wheel truckett)..
Pretty disappointing actually, no new Rotary, a Skyactiv 6 Inline Cylinder coming (thought a V6 would be a better fit) New 8 Speed Auto Trans coming.
I guess the Year is still young!
I am starting to agree with you that if they can't figure a rotary out by now, they will never figure it out. Those emission standards are only going to get tougher.
Inline 6 is seeing more popularity nowadays in general. Mercedes are bring it back as well and lots of people actually prefer I6 over V6 due to its more refined and smooth nature. From an R&D standpoint it also makes sense - V6 used to be more popular because V8 was popular, so you just chop off two cylinders and make a V6 from there. Nowadays, I4 is more popular, so you add two cylinders to make it an I6 and go from there.
Last edited by UnknownJinX; 02-06-2020 at 11:29 AM.
What is Mazda going to do continue the passion of the Mazda brand this year on its 100th? I understand it is a pandemic - but they should at least announce something that will occur (let's say in the next 24 months) that speaks to Mazda ethos as a Company, to loyal fans, and future buyers. If it is not a rotary engine - fine. But whatever marks the 100th Anniversary of a Company that's made it this far - it better be something special (no CX-5s revolving the planet or CX-5's traversing the Continent(s)). It should be a:
- sports car (halo) - perhaps 100 1994/5 RX-7 FDs from official frames (like Jaguar and Aston Martin have done)
- RX-8 RE hydrogen car kits for RX-8 owners (Environmental slant)
- Electric/rotary hybrid system (again one for retrofitting RX-8s as a halo)
- rotary-powered Miata
- 10 prototype RX-Vision for racing use only
What is Mazda going to do continue the passion of the Mazda brand this year on its 100th? I understand it is a pandemic - but they should at least announce something that will occur (let's say in the next 24 months) that speaks to Mazda ethos as a Company, to loyal fans, and future buyers. If it is not a rotary engine - fine. But whatever marks the 100th Anniversary of a Company that's made it this far - it better be something special (no CX-5s revolving the planet or CX-5's traversing the Continent(s)). It should be a:
- sports car (halo) - perhaps 100 1994/5 RX-7 FDs from official frames (like Jaguar and Aston Martin have done)
- RX-8 RE hydrogen car kits for RX-8 owners (Environmental slant)
- Electric/rotary hybrid system (again one for retrofitting RX-8s as a halo)
- rotary-powered Miata
- 10 prototype RX-Vision for racing use only
What think?
They currently just have the special 100th Anni Mazda 3 and MX-5.
I am not sure how many FD RX-7s Mazda would have at this point. They probably have a few of them around, but probably not in the hundreds.
Hydrogen and hybrid kits will have a lot of complexity to justify the benefits. IIRC the hydrogen rotary requires direct injectors(so it's not an easy plug-and-play kinda deal, you are gonna need new housings) and you are gonna make the not-so-big-trunk even smaller by fitting a hydrogen tank there. Hybrid will also eat up the interior volume with batteries.
Rotary-powered Miata would be nice but I don't see any breakthrough in rotaries that would make it will pass the current emission standards. Besides, rotary engines won't have the economy of scale this way.
Racing rotaries... Not sure how well Mazda is doing on that front, but aren't they using 4-cylinder engines for racing nowadays?
I think if they do anything with rotaries, it will be the range extender. Unless you are a supercar company, any engine nowadays has to have the economy of scale to justify the R&D, so you have to fit a rotary into a family car somehow. The range extender idea is a start.
hard top ND with the Renesis was what the RX8 should gave been ...
Ford wouldn't let that happen back then.
And to be fair, RX-8 was actually on the right path if you consider the economy of scale. They made it more practical to appeal to a larger audience, so that it could still be relatively affordable. RX-7 got away largely because of Bubble Economy, but really the sports-car-only-engine approach is only sustainable for luxury German brands due to the higher profit margin on individual units so they don't have to sell many to recoup the R&D cost.
If they made something like a rotary Miata, I expect it to be at least $10k more than a 2.0 Miata, given the sales figure of Miata nowadays.
I disagree. People are willing to accept a quirky, fuel hog engine in a sporty chassis at the right cost level. I only paid around $25k for my base RX8 in 2005. The utility feature may have had some initial appeal, but the realities eventually won over. The lighter chassis would mean less stress on the engine and drivetrain. It could have even been detuned some. The ND engine is not exactly a fire breathing dragon, lol.
The RX-01 was the original and correct strategy imo, but I do agree that Ford drove them away from it and with the expected mediocre end result. It may have taken away some MX5 sales, but as a hardtop only it would attract a different group of people too. The marketing is the key; the bare bones, lightweight, sporty racer vs the more refined and luxurious street convertible. To me, the ND results bare out the potential success if they had gone in that direction. All im-blathering-o, of course.
Edit, stated RX-Evolv, but that was incorrect. It was the RX-01. The Evolv came later with the suicide rear doors that eventually became the RX-8. See RX-01 attachment.
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I agree that there are people who would pay for a quirky sports car with bad fuel economy and practicality, but it's just that rotary engines are very expensive to R&D in this day and age. Just the emission aspect is probably a headache.
Other than supercar companies that can demand a high price to have unique engines, most engines have to be stuffed into Sedans/SUVs/Pickups to justify the R&D. Ford Modular, Chevy small blocks and BMW engines are all made with that in mind: same overall structure, you just have to tweak a few things for different applications. Mazda itself does it with the Skyactiv engines. It's just very difficult to do that with a rotary, unless they have the rotary range extender in a lot of other Mazda cars. Even then, I would think a range extender and a sports car engine has to be designed differently. On top of that, you have the fact that rotary engines are all hand-assembled, which is usually something reserved for high-end sports cars(Shelby GT350, Corvette Z06, GT-R) and that adds further to the cost. The sad reality is that it's very hard to have a business case for rotary nowadays unless maybe Mazda goes absolutely nuts and make a crazy supercar that's also priced crazy, but it's hard to say if Mazda has the brand image to do it.
Just my blathering, but maybe they could try the turbocharged approach again. Get that 1.5 from Europe and Japan, turbocharge it, and stuff it in Miata and in Mazda 3/6 to make it more competitive in markets with displacement tax. I know some people won't like it, but getting 200-ish HP out of a 1.5T isn't too difficult nowadays(Civic Si). Or maybe do a performance variant of the 2.0X engine.
they already patented a revised Renesis type engine with turbo 2 or 3 years ago. It’s on the forum somewhere. They eliminated the center siamese exhaust port and run the two single end plate exhaust ports to a twin scoll turbine housing.
No matter what - a Company needs bling. Mazda needs to do something - even if it is a bling burrito - an inline 6 with a twin turbo stuffed into an RX-Vision and offering only 100 of them for track only use (and some for key dealerships to drive traffic). Magna Steyr can part make and assemble them for Mazda and pass the costs on to the buyer.
02-06-2020, 05:36 AM
MAZDA 100 Year Anniversary VIDEO
