Review: 2011 RX-8 Grand Touring
 

In Automobile Magazine:
http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews...ing/index.html

Nice article(s). Sad though to read too. A brilliant car so few people even knew existed.

Though blaming the car for the Low Oil light coming on wasn't fair. Makes it sound like it needs oil added every 20 miles.

Thanks for sharing. The guy that complains about how much 'work' it is to fill the oil was a bit annoying, but cool article nonetheless.

The end of an era for the rx8, sad but true.

Sad.. to hear that the 8 is going to be discontinued end of this year, as mentioned in the article. :( Hopefully their info is wrong.

Fair article. The curb weight seems off on the last page.

What is the glimpse of a sports car they give in that new Mazda commercial that channels are pushing if the RX8 is discontinued after this year?

It isn't. It's a publicly known fact, per Mazda, that 2011 is the last year for the RX-8

That looks like a trick question....

1: The car you are referring to is a concept car designed to show off the design language that all Mazda's are going to be taking their visual design cues from. The design language is Shinari. The particular car is this one, which was ONLY made to show off the skin. Underneath it's a FWD 2L 4 banger, just so it can be driven around to shows. It was never built to be a chassis or engine development platform.

http://www.egmcartech.com/wp-content...uto_show11.jpg
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....hinari-630.jpg
http://images.smh.com.au/2010/08/31/...00-600x400.jpg

Google image search it for more. The video's of it drifting are computer graphically generated.


2: The Shinari has more rotary style cues than the RX-8, leading to alot of speculation that it was styled with the rotary replacement in mind. However, this has been speculation ONLY. Nothing confirmed or stated by Mazda to indicate this.

3: The RX-8 is ending production, however there is no indication when the next rotary will be coming. Quite a few people claim it won't ever be back, others are hopeful, no one actually knows for sure. Magazines love to run off with wild claims and predictions regarding a rotary replacement, very very very little of it is actually true. Speculation that could possibly be accurate? Sure. Fact? No.

The Styling is "Kodo" the car is Shinari

That is an "image" commercial meant to sell the personality of the Mazda brand: a company that, unlike most car companies, has a real passion for cars, driving and pushing-the-envelope technology. So those "glimpses" of a sports car are not meant to say "these are, literally, the cars we currently sell".

While most of the images are from current Mazda vehicles, they are not there so much to sell Mazda 3's or Miatas, but rather to sell Mazda - a brand dedicated to advanced, edge design and technology, even if "other" car companies think its too radical to pursue (as evidenced by Mazda's ongoing, long-standing support of the rotary engine).

Whether those images come from an RX-8 or a concept car or something else is incidental.

Get it?