Motortrend 12/7/17 - POSSIBLE MAZDA RX-9 MULE CAUGHT TESTING

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yes, article been running around the net for a few days...

Right Hand Drive in EU?, definitely from Japan (JDM) as these SR were not sold in LHD, a few privately imported into NZ, none to AU or UK.

As for the air ducts, well those two oil coolers look pretty beat up (particularly the left one)....not sure an "official" MMC mule would go out like that.

This car was spotted 1 month ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUin...utu.be&t=3m36s


I am skeptical, I don't know why Mazda would be using an RE Amemiya kit, or why they would test a new drivetrain (surely with more power?) on 225 tires. I want the RX-9 as much as the next person, believe me.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...0fe82bdf20.jpg


Wow, Mazda uses RE-Amemiya or their mule parts bin?! *sarcasm*

Sure it's not just some guy tracking his S2?


Edit: spoke too late

Privately?, so someone bought a Spririt R from Japan (Right Hand Drive) to track @ Nuremberg...also a possibility.

Probably imagining this but that RE (in Vid) sounds different (as in larger displacement, lower pitch)...as I am old rotorhead there is definitely a different external sound between revving a 10A, 12A, 13B/Renesis. Could this be a SKYACTIV-R 16X... ??

Sounded like a renesis to me

Well my Google Foo shows me there is no inspection sticker on the RX-8 plate and that it is from Bad Homburg vor der Höhe & Hochtaunuskreis, Hesse. It also doesn't appear that difficult to import a car from Japan to Germany.

That said, I think it's non sense to think it is anything other than some dudes car. And yeah it sounded like a normal 8 to me.

Mazda files another Patent apparently for another Twin Sequential Turbo..
https://www.autoblog.com/2017/12/08/...n-turbo-setup/

After reading the patent its configured for a R.W.D 4CYL DIESEL?

Car and Driver magazine's reaction to the new Mazda Vision Coupe:

"Mazda, you get us. You are our passion and our reason, the sodium to our chloride;together we are the table salt of desire. We lose ourselves in the sweep of this four-dour. Transfixed by its hooded eyes, we drown in the depths of its paint. Its interior looks as if it were carved from a single limb,one struck and felled by a lightning bolt of inspiration off a golden tree of awesome. This is glory beyond English. C'est magnifique."

Don't forget that mass-produced models never look as good as concepts.

There are some designs that are just impractical or even impossible to mass produce cheaply.

UnknownJinx, C&D understands this will look different if ever it is mass-produced , but it is still nice to hear C&D wax almost poetic about a brand we love.

Cheers

the car at Nurburgring I have spoken /postedabout a couple times before since it was there last year and again this year during industry days. last year Mazda brought it along with a McLaren 720s and tested them together. This year they had apparently just the RX-8 mule. It was definitely Mazda running the car as it was industry days and they were seen with the car. This was like a month ago, the same time that Porsche was there trying to break the record. weird that the pubs are just catching up about it.

that turbo patent is for the turbo config of the Skyactiv d

Thanks Charlie, yep I remember now that article a year ago in mag with a front on pic (from memory) and I think that was then running active testing/alignment apparatus on each of the wheels/fenders.
I still reckon that it is a 16X running in it (or 'Skyactiv-R') in the Vid. :yesnod:
Why would they be testing with a 13B.

exactly. definitely chassis/suspension last year and powertrain this year

As I said sounds like a 16X to me and unless you have actually experience most of Mazda's RE's they all have a distinctive pitch when you listen externally, 10A squeal a lot more than a 13B and a 12A is in between, this 8 sounded a lot throatier (lower) to me.

And importing a RHD into Germany (EU) has a few hurdles, headlamps must comply with LEFT Hand Drive and then there is emissions, Japan is not same as EU.
Kann man Rechtslenker in Deutschland problemlos zulassen?

But being a car maker they have special dispensation for a period of time.

Did that previous "mule" have an RE Amemiya bumper? I don't recall. Sounds like nonsense to me. Just like how after every SS for the past 5 years someone talks to someone (an engineer name drop usually) who swears the next rotary sports car is coming.

I remain skeptical...

Yeah, it could really just be some dude's car.

Mazda brought the car there. It was industry pool days. track closed to regular people, open only to those manufacturers who had dropped money in the pot to help rent out the track. there was more than the usual press there because Porsche was known to be trying for a record lap.

Well maybe is sound throatier because it has a RE Amemiya catback to go with the front bumper.

Where did you get this info? And what about the stock 20 year old Supra, E90 BMW, S Class, and other normal cars?

Also depends on the recording and playback device you have. The sound is just very subjective.

To me, it really just sounds like a Renny...

Yeah I was being sarcastic, it sounds like a stock RX-8.

original info from last year and one report from this year in Oct came from the guy that runs https://www.bridgetogantry.com/. well actually originally someone else said to me "hey Dale Lomas from btg is reporting that Mazda was at industry days with an rx-8 and a McLaren". I then followed that up until i found his post on Facebook saying he'd seen it and he had a picture, then i asked him about it directly. some of the pics from last year had those arms and sensor things they put on the corners of the car when they are suspension testing. there was one couple tenths of a second part of a video that had both the rx-8 and McLaren 720s in the same frame with the 8 ahead of the McLaren.

then he mentioned it again in October when he saw it this year and i looked around at a couple other Nurburgring sites and found a video showing it going round again( I think i or someone else posted that video here at the time but I havent looked) and they mentioned it looked like the same one Mazda had there before. looks like it to me too. then there is the video linked above and the pics that the various pubs are floating. the reason there are so many pics about now is , like I said above, there was more focus on the industry pool sessions because of Porsche's record attempt hype.