Official: Rotary Mazda sports car is planned for production

Mazda has confirmed plans to put its striking Iconic SP rotary-powered sports car concept into production in the near future.

Revealed at last year’s Tokyo motor show, the Iconic SP is a tightly packaged, 370bhp vision of a future sports car in the vein of the MX-5, equipped with an innovative hybrid powertrain that uses a rotary engine to generate power for the EV motors that drive the wheels.

At the car’s unveiling, bosses were tight-lipped on whether the concept would evolve directly into a production car, but now the firm’s design boss Masahi Nakayama has confirmed that the firm’s intention is to put the Iconic SP on the road.

“This concept is not just one of those empty show cars. It’s been designed with real intent to turn it into a production model in the not-so-distant future,” he said, stopping short of giving a projected timeframe. 

Naohito Saga from Mazda’s planning division added that the concept was designed with a keen eye on eventual homologation: In the development process, everything from position of the doors and tyres, to the length of the vehicle, the seating position of the occupants and visibility was meticulously researched before reaching the final specifications.

“It really shows how much we wanted to make it a car that manifests Mazda’s commitment for the future, especially in terms of sustainability and the future role of our rotary engine technology.”  

There is a strong indication, too, that the production version will use the same hybrid powertrain, with the firm hailing the scalability, compact size and synthetic fuel compatibility of its new rotary petrol engine. 

Notably, the firm does already sell a rotary-electric car in the form of the MX-30 R-EV, which similarly drives on EV power but uses a petrol motor to charge its traction battery and extend range. 

Mazda has long touted the potential benefits of synthetic fuels as a means of decarbonising combustion cars, holding back on transitioning its product line-up to pure-electric power.

Saga said the ability to run the Iconic SP on sustainable fuels, including hydrogen, “could give us an edge in the race to find a feasible solution for the future of mobility”, with Mazda estimating that the concept’s powertrain has the potential to cut emissions by 90% compared to current petrol equivalents.

The firm is also working on a system for capturing CO2 from exhaust emissions, which it says could “take Mazda one step further and see it evolve into a carbon-negative manufacturer”.

Mazda says a rotary range-extender powertrain makes sense for an electric sports car because it can be configured in a variety of layouts for optimum weight distribution and packaging. Here, for example, the tightly packaged petrol engine is housed in the middle of the car, which promotes a low centre of gravity while allowing for a long, probing front bonnet and cab-rear silhouette.

The two-seater concept measures 4180mm long, 1850mm wide and 1150mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2590mm, which makes it closer in size to the Alpine A110 than the MX-5. 

Tipping the scales at 1450kg – roughly on a par with the four-cylinder Lotus Emira, which produces 360bhp – the concept should be, theoretically, significantly faster than any road-going Mazda so far.

The combination of the proportions, size, powertrain and packaging is what makes this “concept a demonstration to ourselves that what technologies we can put in a compact sports car” in the future, Mazda’s chief financial officer, Jeff Guyton, told Autocar. “We have packaging feasibility for things we’re talking about.

Guyton added: “By itself, the concept is not intended to be the next MX-5 or something else, although if the responses are great, that’s a nice indication that there could be some market for this.”

Mazda has given no indication of when an electrified MX-5 would make production, but now that the current car has been safeguarded against impending safety legislation, it can be expected to remain on sale until at least 2026.

The Iconic SP makes it clear that Mazda intends the MX-5 to live on in its future electrified line-up and the aim of this concept is as inspiration for a future MX-5, not a reborn RX, even though, like past RX sports cars, it uses a rotary engine.

Guyton said that while “there are technical solutions we have to make, especially with the emissions for the rotary, and with challenges left, including the battery packaging, some of the fundamentals are there.” He added: “This was a demonstration of ‘we want to put these pieces together, can we do it, make it compact and make it a sports car?’ We can.”

The packaging of the rotary “unlocks the concept’s unique proportions”, said Guyton, pointing out that it is based on a “unique” architecture for Mazda. While the concept is a hard-top coupé, it can be made into a convertible and that has been factored into its creation, said Guyton.

Guyton said that as a car maker selling in more than 130 countries, Mazda not only has a duty to produce decarbonised models but also to do so in a way that suited a majority of its markets – ie far from all markets are ready to go battery-electric – and it believes the Iconic SP’s powertrain solution delivers on that.

The cockpit give clues as to just how important handling is for this electric reimagining of the MX-5. The digital driver display hosts a g-meter and, intriguingly, a map of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit – hinting that the Vision SP has been conceived with rapid lap times and driver engagement as a prevailing focus.

There are shift paddles behind the steering wheel too for adjusting the brake regeneration and a touchscreen that looks to host controls for the active aerodynamic elements, suspension settings and launch control. Other visible features include a 360deg camera and an ultrasound sensor in the front grille, presumably for adaptive cruise control.

The cabin is trimmed in a blend of microsuede and Mazda's plant-based bio-fabric material in a nod to the firm's ambitious pledge to be completely carbon neutral by 2050.

Recently appointed Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro, revealing the concept in Tokyo last year, said: "We love the MX-5, and the world loves the MX-5. We are determined in the age of electrification to keep the joy of driving which the MX-5 represents alive and the Mazda Iconic SP, with its dual rotary power generator-EV powertrain is our dream solution – a dream we will work hard to launch.

“Mazda will always deliver vehicles that remind people that cars are pure joy and an indispensable part of their lives.”

He was named as Mazda's new CEO in March last year, at the same time as the company announced a massive £8.7 billion electrification initiative, under which it will introduce new hybrid and pure-electric models by 2027, before working to electrify all of its cars from 2028.