Imp

Article:

Mazda Gets Ready to Launch 256-horsepower "Hot Hatch" Version of 3

Date Posted 04-20-2005

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Mazda is readying a 'hot hatch' version of the Mazda3 — and we're talking jalapeño! The 3 MPS (Mazda Performance Series) uses the same 2.3-liter engine as the bigger 6 MPS, and this could make the car the hottest hatch on the market.

The 6 MPS puts out 256 horsepower — way more than the VW Golf GTI (197 hp) or the forthcoming Opel/Vauxhall Astra VXR (237 hp). This should give the 3 MPS a 0-to-60 mph time of below 7 seconds — blistering performance.

The 3 MPS will debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September and will go on sale shortly after. Its aggressive styling affirms Mazda is quickly shaking off its fuddy-duddy image, helped by the RX-8 and MX-5 sports cars.

These are likely to be joined in future by a new version of the classic rotary-engined RX-7 two-door coupe. This would sit between the MX-5 and the RX-8 and be powered by the RX-8's powerful rotary engine. Mazda insiders maintain the car will be built, but it is still at least three years away.

What this means to you: Continuing the trend in North America, Mazda is attempting to boost its brand by shedding its dull skin and pumping more exciting models.

From:
http://www.awknowledge.com/WVMA/cont...ontentid=34955

Sooo in-between the 5 and the 8... two door, same engine... if it has a better suspension, and just a tad smaller, it could be a really fun car. :D

--kC

DreRX8

It makes perfect economic since--because platform sharing is good for the longevity of the RX8. If the car was 2-door/2 seat less weight car it would match up well against the 350Z--even with the 6-port engine left as is and not boosted it could get to 60 in about 5.5 seconds with the current setup.

Imp

The 8 matches well with the 350Z right now (if you remove 1/4 mile). It gets about the same 60' time tho.

I would definitly be interested in the car tho... It would be a 'Sports Car' instead of a 'Grand Tourer' that the 8 currently is.

--kC

rx8wannahave

256HP MS3...no way??? I did not say anything about the MS6...but now they want to make a 3 with 256H? NO way...that will be significantly faster than the 8, it's lighter.

Mybe I'm freaking out...but come on Mazda???

RX-Hachi

Don't worry, the MS RX-8 can't be too far behind. Once its specs are announced, the pecking order will be restored.

Especially if a new RX-7 is 3 years out, Mazda will need to upgrade the RX-8's power. They know its power is a little below par compared to other cars in its class. And they're not happy about that.

I've said it before, it should be very easy for Mazda to make a new RX-7. The new MX-5's chassis seems to share much from the RX-8. All they need to do is create a chassis slightly bigger than the MX-5, keep the weight down, slap in an upgraded Renesis, design a drop dead gorgeous RX7 body (one that is an evolution of the 3rd gen), and we're good to go. The real question is whether there's a market big enough for 3 Mazda sports cars.

shaolin

^^^I bet that the 8 will be discontinued with the reintroduction of the 7

Reactionary

shaolin might be right.

Sigma

I wouldn't bet money on that.

The RX-8 has MUCH wider appeal than a coupe would have. RX-8 sales, while not stupendously high, are much higher than RX-7 sales were the last 10 years of production. The RX-7 while likely offering more performance ability than the RX-8 will surely sacrifice utility and perhaps even some luxury to do so -- being placed "in-between the MX-5 and RX-8".

If Mazda drops the RX-8 in favor of the RX-7 it's because they give up on producing a rotary for the masses and instead are content with it remaining an engine for enthusiasts and little more.

RX-Hachi

I agree, it's the RX-8 that makes an RX-7 viable. If the RX-8 continues to sell well enough, Mazda can justify borrowing its technology for a more hard core RX-7. But without the 8, there's no 7, not the other way around (IMO).

Ellar

Remember that the simple reason 7 sales were down (and Supra sales, for that matter) was that very few people were ready to pay near-Porsche sticker prices for Japanese sportscars that fell a little short of the mark. Yeah, you could kick *** with very cheap upgrades, but people who drop that much at the dealer are looking for the prestige of the tags, and out-of-the-box performance.

shaolin

Okay so then by your reasoning, the Z shouldn't be selling well either...but it is. Look, the main reason why the 7 died out in this country was because of reliability issues for one, as mentioned Porsche like prices, (my father paid 40 grand for his RX-7 in 1994, adjusted for inflation that would be 50 grand in today's market), plus the fact that the baby boomers were all grown up with families and moving on to SUV's. This is the reason the sports car generally died in the mid to late nineties.

There is no need for a 4 door sports car at the moment. Granted we've got the EVO/STi but that's a niche market. The fact of the matter is, the baby boomers kids are grown up now, and they're all going through mid life crisis again, and can now drive sports cars again. The current trend is for them to be mid priced sports cars with more technology than their predecessors.

It's my prediction that the RX-8 will continue to be for quite some time, and IF...that's a BIG IF, the RX-7 makes a return, it will be heavily based on the RX-8, but the RX-8 will be discontinued mainly for the fact that they only released the RX-8 to test the waters for a sports car market. Mazda was afraid after the extinction of sports cars in the nineties that America wasn't ready for a two door two seater car again...so they made a few compromises to ensure the car will still appeal in either case. Great idea...now that the market is there, and is demanding a more hard edged car to compete with the likes of the Z, well, the 7 will probably be released, and the 8 discontinued so that they don't cannabalize eachother in sales.

That's why I said that. Hope you understand my thinking...

Ellar

The Z died for a while for the very same reason. They are much more reasonably priced now than the last of the TT 300Z's.

The Evo's and STi's came out with mid-$30,000 price tags after Porsche had climbed out of the 40's. Unfortunately, until the 350Z, the Japanese couldn't match a low-to-mid 30's price tag with a sexy body again (sorry, Ike ).

Mugatu

iTrader: (1)

All speculative thinking. And I don't agree with you one bit.

Reactionary

Yeah it's all speculative. My feeling is in 3 years, what will RX8 sales be like? By then, it will either be time for a new RX8 or an RX8 replacement. If replacement, it might be an RX7. In addition, if the MPS6 and MPS3 find success, it might warrant further increases in HP/performance for those cars. I can even imagine that scenario setting up the entrance for a new Mazda6s with increased HP and a general increase in focus and resources from Mazda. If those things happen, RX8 might be at a disadvantage. If rotary HP gains can not mirror gains in Mazda piston cars, then the solution for the rotary might be to go to a lighter car that can still outperform a piston engine Mazda sedan, for example, that has more HP.

Ellar

Yeah, but you have minty breath, Shaolin, so you can hang around and be wrong if you like... lol

m477

3 years? That makes perfect sense -- there is a pattern developing here:

2004 - RX-8
2006 - Miata
2008 - RX-7

zoom44

shaolin your theory is that they were AFRAID to bring out a traditional sportscar so they spent a billion dollars(i dont know the actual dollars) and 8-10 years developing a highly risky weird looking 4 door sports car/coupe/sedan with an even riskier weird looking, quirky operating ,niche engine with a history of reliability problems instead? yeah that makes sense :p

Sigma

There's a big difference between the market of "Coupe Buyers" and the market of "Coupe Buyers willing to buy a Rotary-powered Mazda" and you're talking about even further differentiating that down to "Coupe Buyers willing to buy a Rotary-powered Mazda that won't currently consider an RX-8" -- you're drilling yourself down to a market that can't be larger than a few thousand people in the entire country.

There's certainly more people buying the RX-8 because it has 4-doors than there are people not buying it because it has 4-doors. Making an RX-7 isn't going to open the doors to any wider of a market than the RX-8 does currently, in fact it will surely be targetted at a smaller market. The G35 sedan, for example, outsells the G35 coupe by a 2:1 margin.

It doesn't need to be more "hard-edged" to compete with the Z -- 95% of the people buying these cars don't even want hard-edged. They just want a cool little sportscar they can drive to work in. The Z doesn't sell better because it's "Hard-edged", it sells for a great many intrinsic reasons. Make the RX-8 not only smaller by removing the doors and then make it more "hard-edged" and you again make the target market even smaller. If "hard-edged" is what people wanted Mazda could give that to them in the RX-8. Mazda is drawing a lot more people away from the 350Z because it is refined and has 4 doors than Nissan is drawing away from Mazda because the Z isn't refined and doesn't hae 4 doors.

And a small target market is fine. By Nissans' standards the Z is actually a much smaller seller than the RX-8 is. The Z only accounts for about 2% of Nissan's sales, but the RX-8 accounts for 5 times that of Mazda's sales -- 10%. You don't just play around with 10% of the market. If Nissan did something and lost 50% of its' Z sales, it wouldn't make a dent in it. But if Mazda lost 50% of its' RX-8 sales by clammoring after a smaller market of people who purely want a coupe, 5% of its' total production, it would be in a world of hurt.

And the other thing to remember is that a rotary-powered car has to target a larger market than a Z car. The 350Z has the luxury of sharing a platform with the G35 and G35 sedan which also all use the same VQ engine that is used in almost every Nissan application that there is. That's cost-sharing taken to the max right there. A rotary-powered car not only must sell enough units to pay it's own development, but also its' own platform development, and an entire engine-production facility just for it. The G35 sedan (despite being rather ugly comparatively) outsells its' coupe brethern by a 2:1 margin; Mazda can't afford to slice it's market in half by only choosing the coupe route.

By dropping the RX-8 in favor of an RX-7 model, sales would virtually certainly go down. There's nothing that an RX-7 by itself could offer than the RX-8 currently cannot (except maybe a convertible) or could that would do anything to increase sales. If Mazda wanted a faster, more "hard-edged" car to compete with the Z (which I find funny because the RX-8 beats it in every category except straight-line performance) RX-8 they could easily do that for a LOT cheaper than making a whole new car. An RX-7 could be produced parallel to the RX-8 for minimal extra costs (a great deal of platform, engine, and parts sharing) that would open the doors to the minimal market out there that the RX-8 is excluding. But producing just a harder-edged coupe throwing all the production costs on its' shoulders is is only going to yield the same results as past RX-7s -- a market so small that price must be raised considerably to come even close to covering costs.

RX cars have to sell well. There are just too many additional costs in their production and future support that other cars don't have to deal with. Without an RX-8 Mazda cannot afford to make an RX-7 -- not a reasonably-priced one anyhow. Given a choice between producing just one or the other, you can be pretty sure that an RX-7 targetted at a much smaller market would certainly lose out.

RX-Hachi

I agree with Sigma. However, I also think that if an RX-7 is released, its target might not be the Z. The 3rd gen RX-7 was one of Japan's elite sports cars and went head to head with cars like the Skyline GT-R and the NSX, but at a much lower relative price point.

My hope is that with an RX-8 (current gen or a 2nd gen 8 in 2009??) accounting for the majority of rotary sales, Mazda can justify making the RX-7 a pure sports car similar to the Lotus Elise. Lightweight and minimal, so a beefed up NA 16b Renesis can move it to 60 mph in less than 5 secs. By sharing technology between the RX-8 & 7, Mazda can load balance its costs better and produce the RX-7 at 350Z (Track model) like prices. The 7 could be more of a halo car, and built mainly because it's so loved by Mazda's own engineers.

If the RX-7 were to go it alone, it will be a very crowded market to compete in. We already have the Z, Elise, S2K, new MX-5, BMW Z4, Boxster, Vette etc. in the 2 seater sports car space. By 2008, some of these cars will be next gen as well. And, the old RX-7's nemesis like the NSX, Supra and GTR will also likely be reborn. If there was no RX-8 at that time to sustain rotary sales, the RX-7 would be snatched up by diehard rotary enthusiast for the 1st and 2nd year of its intro, but after that, sales could virtually dry up.

One good thing that might help the rebirth of an RX-7 is history. The original RX-7 was introduced in 1978 in Japan. I'm certain Mazda would like to celebrate its 30th anniversary in style.

DARKMAZ8

If anything, mazda will make an rx-9 in probably 5-8 years. Mazda has never gone back model #'s in the rx series. There is no point to build another sports car that competes with the in 8 sales. I think an rx-9 would be the next 7 if mazda meets their targets with the 8.

DARKMAZ8

If they won't celebrate a 25th anniversary then why celebrate a 30th.

RXLogic

The MS Mazda 3 (or Mazdaspeed cars in general) could cover the practical sports car niche pretty well. That would leave the rotary niche for the RX-7.

Reactionary

Seems like both sides have good points. If anything, the intersection of the rotary, the market, and Mazda is unpredictable. Anything can happen, which is both exciting and frustrating.

PaulieWalnuts

If they do release the RX-7, I doubt they'd can the RX-8. Sales of the 8 will be dropping over the next few years and IMO the 7 would help to bring in new sales as well as support continuing the 8. Sharing platforms and rotaries would reduce costs for both cars. So maybe three years from now the 8 and the 7 would both be selling 15,000 units each per year.

As Nissan has proven, there's a market for affordable 2-seat sports cars. I believe a 7 and 8 would compliment each other.

larazaunida

because 30 is better than 25