Mazda Is Once Again Edging Us With A Rotary-Powered RX-7 Revival That'll Never Happen
Other than Full Self-Driving coming any day now, pretty much nothing in the automotive industry has been teased and speculated on more than Mazda producing some sort of rotary-powered sports car. The Japanese automaker never misses an opportunity to make headlines with this type of speculation, and, dammit, if I don't fall for it every single time. Of course, focus was kicked into high gear when it introduced the Iconic SP concept back in 2023 and said it was designed with production in mind. Well, we're quite a few years down the road from that, and there's still no production Iconic SP, so Mazda decided it needed to stoke the flames of rotary hope once again.
The automaker's product planning supervisor for Europe, Moritz Oswald, recently spoke with Auto Express and said the project isn't dead despite the fact that Mazda has turned pretty much all of its attention to the new CX-5 crossover and a stronger electrification effort.
"If there's a feasible way to do that, then I'm sure if somebody will do it, it's Mazda, because here the enthusiasts still make things happen. I think at the moment the MX-5 is still our halo car that stands for everything that Mazda products should," Oswald told Auto Express. Could there be something next to it or above? Yes."
He added that there was a "deep desire" within Mazda to launch "emotional products" like the Iconic SP, so he says they're looking into it. However, freezing cold water was thrown on the flames when Oswald reminded everyone of the fact that Mazda is a company that "has to bring in revenues." Do you know what probably isn't going to bring in a lot of revenue? A rotary-powered two-door sports car.
Oswald explained that the company likes to show off concept vehicles like the Iconic SP to see how they resonate with potential buyers — to see if there's really a market there. Thus far, it doesn't seem like there's quite enough of a market to justify putting it into production, despite what Reddit will have you believe.
Hell, the Iconic SP wasn't even the last rotary-powered concept car we saw. At the Tokyo Auto Show, Mazda pulled the covers off the Vision X-Coupe concept — a rotary-powered plug-in hybrid four-door sedan thing that, Mazda says, makes 503 horsepower. The company didn't reveal too many details on the car since, well, you know, it almost certainly will never be built.
This really sort of begs the question of whether a rotary-powered sports car is even really necessary for Mazda. The last car the automaker built with a rotary was the short-lived RX-30 R-EV, and in that application, it acted only as a range-extending generator that could help it go about 400 miles on a tank of gas. Other than that, we haven't seen a rotary since the RX-8 died after the 2012 model year, and it's not like anyone is clamoring for a rotary-powered Miata, either.
If you ask me, it's just about time for Mazda to take a dump or get off the pot, because this is all getting a little bit silly, no? The RX-7 was, undoubtedly, a cool car, but it's been 31 years since it left the U.S. market. Perhaps we should all move on... or build the damn car. I just can't take this "will they, don't they" garbage anymore.
