This Mazda is the future sports car of your day dreams
Sure, it's a concept car for now but Mazda says this awesome design is going into production
Some of the coolest cars never make it to full production, existing only as concept prototypes wheeled out onto show floors, but Mazda’s latest sports car is apparently headed to real forecourts.
Mazda showed off the Iconic SP at the Tokyo Car Show. It’s an incredibly sleek and slick-looking sports car, all red curves on the outside and a blue interior behind its funky upwards-opening doors.
If you look a 2024 Mazda MX-5 and injected it with some Ferrari DNA, you wouldn’t be too far off the Mazda Iconic SP.
Fantastic-looking concept cars that never actually get produced are common, but Mazda says this design is one actually heading to production.
“This concept is not just one of those empty show cars,” says Nasahi Nakayama from Mazda’s design team. "It’s been designed with real intent to turn it into a production model in the not-so-distant future.”
One rumour is the Iconic SP will be the face of the return of the Mazda RX-7, which has been out of production for more than two decades. The line was discontinued in 2002, and didn’t even make it past the millennium for the UK and European markets.
However, the Mazda RX-7 is considered a classic, and remains a favourite in racing game series like Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo.
This new take on the classic is expected to have up to 390bhp, more than double that of a Mazda MX-5. And it may well have a bit of an unusual engine layout.
It’s reported to use a rotary engine like the Mazda RX-8, used to power an electric motor system, making it a hybrid car — the combustion engine part used as a range extender.
This certainly isn’t the first Mazda concept car to use a rotary engine. Anyone remember the Mazda Furai? This awesome-looking concept car caught fire while taking part in a shoot for Top Gear, the TV show.
