Yeah IIRC it ran an identical lap time to a an E46 M3 or something.

Edit: Just checked, it ran a 8:22, faster than an NSX by quite a bit back in 1997................... Crazy.

Ugly on the inside though, some of the interior looks like they contracted Fisher Price to make the parts.

100% agree, I hate those damn things.

Mazda should do a tie up with Subaru, Mazda handles the design, steering and suspension and Subaru handles the engine and drive train. MX-8 is born......

That's the worst idea I have ever heard.

Who in their right mind, after listening to the sweet music of a rotary, would go for the noise of an engine that sounds like it had one of its four spark plug wires disconnected-UGH! Maybe even two.

I don't hate the sound of the boxer, but the rotary sounds a million times nicer than it! :)

Yes, because the FRS/BRZ is such a powerhouse.... Mazda would be better off with an upgraded version of their own Skyactive D TT engine like in the Speed Source 6's.

Jeez M8..no, you are saying that it (rotary) 'could' come back in more than one model!?

You do know the history of Mazda do you?, obviously not, they stopped making more than one model Rotary over 30 years ago.....this will never happen.

I guess we can say anything and be a dreamer..;)

Reality is it is not going to happen, there just is not a market there, is that so difficult to understand.

BTW the new CEO is exactly that, new and young, I expect him to be in his position for at least 10 years (taking on an average of past Mazda CEO's).

This is his first statement on the RE, and it certainly it is not good.

Fuel here (yesterday) when I filled my MX-5 was $1.69 a litre, that is about $7.50 a US gallon, more in Europe, and you think a RE of any current configuration is going to sell @ 25 MPG (best) ?

MMC are now almost 100% independent, the last time they almost went broke they had multiple RE models for sale (I was in Mazda Dealership), you could not give them away with the fuel crisis.

This time now Mazda are just not going to risk losing more money again on any RE, sadly..they made nothing on the RX-8.

Also remember the RENESIS was born by Mazda Japan engineers fiddling in their own time, not on the companies.

I would be first in line 'if' a new RE came to be (provided it was main power plant).

As I said there is nothing positive to suggest there ever will be...the opposite is the fact.

It is the CEO who puts his neck on the line, not a past CEO now Chairman Yamanouchi...it is the CEO's call.

Do you just spew random facts? It baffles me how someone can be so ignorant. It's amazing really.

You do realize the Renesis was actually a concept designed pre-95 for the RX01 which was supposed to follow the FD?

Ash, I refuse to believe that there are limitations on what human ingenuity, passion, and drive to be different will acomplish.

I don't place bets on any specific data point. I don't base my belief on any collection of challenges or market statistics or historical precedence. I base it on human nature. If there is an engine, someone is out there trying to make it faster, more efficient. This is still true of steam engines after all. In order to take an action, people need motive and opportunity. The motive exists, the opportunity isn't right now, but with a lab still researching the rotary and a company on the rebound, the opportunity very well might be around the corner.

I know all about everything stacked against a rotary return, but all it takes is one crazy guy with a dream.

I'd hate to think what our aerospace industry would be like if we had guys like Ash at the helm.

AHem... I guess we should just close this thread like every other thread that people get heated on...

No, no need. It's still a valuable discussion.

16x being shelved and a sky -r is just marketing . the sky-r is just a new name for the 16x. it's a longer stroke rotary with thinner than renny rotors 3 plugs and direct injection

At this point it is a pipe dream we are all holding out for. Hopefully Mazda produces the next gen rotary.

I love rotary engines. They taught me a lot. I also love history, and it has also taught me a lot.

The rotary engine destroyed NSU financially. That's partly why VW was able to buy it up in the 60s and make it a part of what became the modern incarnation of Audi. Audi kept the Ro80 rotary sedan into production for a few years, and kept researching a new rotary. They even had Audi 100 prototypes running around in the late 70s with a new generation rotary closer in design to what Mazda was running at the time.

The rotary engine also almost destroyed Mazda. The mass market rotaries were fine until fuel economy became an issue. Then those became a disaster. Every low volume niche product they made with them cost the company a gazillion dollars (3 rotor Cosmo, 3rd gen Rx-7). Only the high volume stuff did ok/good financially (1st gen Rx-7), and they still dropped the ball on Rx-8 reliability issues.

Let this be a lesson to all those peddling "revolutionary" ideas for combustion engines. NSU licensed the rotary to about a dozen major OEMs including Toyota and GM. None of them could figure out the rotary engine for the long term. Now Mazda has called it quits because they don't want history to repeat itself, and with the state of the global economy I can't say I blame them. The longer it stays out of production, the more likely it will never come back because of the risks involved.

I'll have to pour one out for the Wankel though. It had a good run.

Agreed, the Sky-R has the 16X dimensions, though it doesn't use the 16X name any more. Research has progressed beyond that point.

arghx7, I don't think you actually read the article...

Specifically the point where he mentions that they are still researching and developing the rotary. Hardly "calling it quits".

WTB new mods...

Edit: More specifically, Al and Zoom are muh faves...

I read it. NSU/Audi was still researching the rotary into the early 80s and we all know how that turned out. The longer an engine stays out of production, the more risky it becomes to make it again. All the people with knowledge of it leave the company. The tooling becomes useless.

So yeah, it's still being researched. That means 2 guys are doing simulations and 3 guys have some mule engine in an engine dyno test cell on a shoestring budget.

No, it doesn't mean that. I agree about the risk of lengthy out of production periods, but it's not the death toll that people seem to think it is. They have a specific goal for the engine still, and while that goal isn't one that we want specifically, it still gives a direction, a purpose, and a budget.

I've been reading the news across multiple forums with a heavy heart, but I can't say I'm at all surprised. By modern standards, the rotary as we know it is a forgone novelty that simply failed to deliver on its space-age promises. Simply, it was a product of its time - a time in which there was still a future to be amazed by, and it all seemed to be right around the corner. Well, we're living in that future now, and the rotary just couldn't make the cut.

I won't speculate on what could have happened with more capital or development, because it's been speculated to death, but the rotary is essentially Sega to the piston engine's Nintendo. Betamax to its VHS. HD-DVD to their Blu-Ray. Merits notwithstanding, the rotary in its present form has reached its inevitable end-life conclusion. Think about it...it's been nearly 50 years and the rotary just couldn't make a good enough case for itself to earn widespread acceptance. To reiterate: half a goddamned century.

I wish it could have turned out differently. For the first time, I've been seriously thinking about replacing my 8 with a truck. As much as I hate that, I simply don't have room for a third vehicle and a nice truck would be more beneficial in my current situation. This has made my decision indescribably more difficult.

Who's 'they' ? A small, rapidly shrinking contingent within the company. And they have very little power, because the guy calling the shots said no. He's allowing the advanced engineering team to have some budget to keep it going, mostly for PR and internal politics. No sense in totally crushing people's morale. Meanwhile, the tooling and manufacturing facilities will be repurposed so that people can keep their jobs.

Eventually the guys who are working on it will shift to other projects, leave Mazda for another company, or retire. A few more people might come on here and there, but when it's a distant enough memory Mazda will quietly pull the plug. That's how it happened at Audi.

The big boss doesn't want to be the guy who put the company in the red to satisfy a few diehards in the company and some people on the internet who can't wait to buy a rotary sports car when it's a depreciated used car. If he screws up, people lose their livelihoods. Mazda isn't "too big to fail," and the rotary engine nearly killed the company back in the 1970s. Can you really blame him? Why even do a rotary for a hybrid when you can just do a small turbo 3 cylinder?

I want the rotary to come back, but we have to face up to reality here.