Last year at the Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda wowed everyone with their latest rotary-powered concept, the Mazda RX-Vision. The Hiroshima-based carmaker’s newest sports car subsequently went on public display at the recently concluded Festival Automobile International held in Paris last weekend.
The RX-Vision is Mazda’s latest expression of their KODO: Soul of Motion design philosophy, and takes the look of this front-engined, rear-wheel drive sports car to a whole new level. It was nominated alongside several other impressive concept cars such as the Porsche Mission E, Bentley Exp10 Speed 6 and Peugeot Fractal.
If you’re new to the term ‘rotary-powered’, that’s because the engine isn’t as common as you would think, and it’s headed the way of the dodo due to terrible fuel economy and emissions. That is, until now. The RX-Vision, together with the rotary engine (coined as Skyactiv-R, also known as the Wankel engine) is set to make a comeback by 2020, and it shouldn’t serve as a surprise if the engineers at Hiroshima are having sleepless nights in their efforts to produce the next-generation, butter-smooth rotary engine.
With the way things are going, we’re certainly in for a pleasant surprise.
