Forget those silly spy photographs, Mazda fans need only wait until Monday to see what the updated RX-8 will look like.
Mazda has announced that it'll be bringing the new RX-8 to this year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, along with a new (and very intriguing) concept car. Mazda's press release (below) doesn't mention much about the new RX-8, other than saying that it is "heavily revised". Does this mean it WILL debut the new 1.6-litre 16x rotary motor, or does it merely mean it's got new bumpers and fancier wheels? We'll find out on Monday.
Mazda's Furai concept car, the latest in a string of concepts featuring the "Flow" design principle, will also be unveiled at Detroit. What marks the Furai apart from previous concepts like the Nagare, Ryuga and Taiki, is the fact that it's a concept car designed specifically with the racetrack in mind. Based upon Mazda's Courage C65 chassis, which has seen service in the American Le Mans Series, the Furai is intended to showcase a practical road/race car design.
Powered by a 336kW tri-rotor engine, could the Furai be hinting at Mazda's intent to produce a fully homologated street-legal racecar (like Nissan's R390 GT1)? Probably not, but from the one shot the company released of it (above), we can just tell this is gunna be one sexy looking racecar.
HIROSHIMA, Japan, December 12, 2007?Mazda Motor Corporation will showcase the world premieres of the Mazda Furai concept vehicle and the heavily revised new Mazda RX-8 sports car at the 2008 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), to be held in Detroit from Sunday, January 13 through Sunday, January 27, 2008. On the heels of its show-stopping debut at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show in October, the Mazda Taiki concept vehicle also will make its North American debut, the first time it has been shown outside Japan. Additionally, Mazda will have a special display of racecars on its stand during the press days, and the full lineup of production cars for consumers to sample on the public days.
Inspired by the fact that, on any given weekend, there are more Mazdas and Mazda-powered cars road-raced in the United States than any other brand, the Mazda Furai is the sort of car that could only come from a company that incorporates the ?Soul of a Sports Car? into everything it builds, but with an eye toward the future and the environment through the use of ethanol (E100) produced by British Petroleum (BP).
Furai takes Mazda?s unique Nagare (Japanese for ?flow?) design language a step further as it is translated into a concept car based on an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) racing car. The car utilizes the Courage C65 chassis the company campaigned in the ALMS series only two seasons ago, and the 450-hp three-rotor rotary engine that distinguishes it from anything else on the track.
Says Franz von Holzhausen, Mazda?s North American director of design, ?Furai purposely blurs boundaries that have traditionally distinguished street cars from track cars. Historically, there has been a gap between single-purpose racecars and street-legal models ? commonly called supercars ? that emulate the real racers on the road. Furai bridges that gap like no car has ever done before.?
Mazda?s critically acclaimed Nagare design language describes the flow of water, air, people or things moving in one direction. Mazda Nagare is flow, with an insightful and spirited styling, which, in Mazda Furai, invokes a raw, unfettered desire to possess everything this car represents.
[Source: Mazda] [Photo courtesy of Mazda] zum Original
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