A dozen years after killing off its last rotary-powered model, the RX-8, Mazda has given the go to the Iconic SP Sports Car which will bring back the Wankel engine back into production, President Katsuhiro Mogo and other officials have confirmed. Here’s what we know.
The Mazda Iconic SP made its debut in concept form at the 2023 Japan Mobility Show.
Ever before the old Mazda RX-8 was pulled from production back in 2012 the Japanese automaker has dropped hints that it would revive the legendary Wankel engine that had been a mainstay of the brand all the way back into the late 1960s.
While the rotary engine found an unusual niche, serving as a range extender for the otherwise all-electric Mazda MX-30 e-Skyactive R-EV, the automaker hadn’t been able to come up with a viable way to use it as a primary source of power.
Now, after a series of failed efforts, it appears that’s going to happen. Mazda President Katsuhiro Mogo and other officials have revealed plans to introduce a production version of the Iconic SP sports car concept first revealed to great acclaim at the 2023 Japan Mobility Show.
Rebirth of the rotary
The Mazda Iconic SP, in production form, will bring the rotary engine back to production.
As Headlight.News reported last year, the Iconic SP concept is a low-slung two-seat sports car that picks up on the automaker’s latest design language. But it features an extraordinarily low front end that could only be put into production with the help of a rotary engine.
While Mazda hasn’t made an official announcement, a number of senior officials have been blabbing about their plans for the Iconic S. At the mobility show, Mogo described the Iconic concept as a sign of the brand’s “commitment to the future.”
In an interview with Carscoops, Mazda design chief Masashi Nakayama has gone further, saying “This concept is not just one of those empty show cars. It has been designed with real intent to turn it into a production model in the not-so-distant-future.”
What we know
The concept version of the Iconic was specifically designed for production, officials said.
Nakayama stressed that when putting the Iconic project together his team avoided the sort of fantasy-in-chrome shapes and features that define all too many concepts. It was specifically designed with production in mind.
That would mean that the final version of the Iconic won’t visually stray very far from the concept. But there likely will be at least some tweaks to its looks by the time it reaches showrooms.
Some of the changes will likely come under the hood, as well, as Mazda finishes development of a new rotary engine capable of powering the production model. In concept form, the Iconic SP’s Wankel used a dual rotor design paired with an electric drivetrain, turning out a combined 365 horsepower.
What remains to be seen is whether the production model will rely solely on a rotary engine or carry over the range-extender approach in the Iconic sports car.
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Starting over
The low front end of the Mazda Iconic concept was specifically designed for using a small rotary engine.
Efforts to develop a more modern version of the rotary were put on hold back in 2021, Headlight.News previously reported. But it has been brought back to “get closer to the dream” of bringing it back to life, Mogo told Carscoops.
The Mazda chief said he’s assigned 30 engineers to the project. Their primary challenge will be to come up with a way to make the Wankel engine more cleaner and more energy efficient. That’s no easy task.
Rotaries have some real advantages, for one thing, producing significant power from a very small package. But they also have their challenges. Back in the 1970s Mazda almost went broke when its original Wankel packages, used in products like the RX-2 and RX-3 sedans, failed catastrophically due to problems with the seals around their rotors.
An alternative approach
Eventually, that problem was resolved but Wankels also proved unable to meet the increasing focus on fuel economy, forcing Mazda to trim back use of the engine technology. In the end, it was found only in the low-volume RX-8 sports car.
More recently, it’s found a new life working in range-extender form. In the e-Skyactive R-EV version of the MX-30, the wheels are driven exclusively by an electric motor. The Wankel only provides a steady flow of current, when needed, to keep the vehicle’s battery pack charged. And by operating in a narrow RPM band the rotary can be tuned for maximum efficiency.
It remains to be seen if the production version of the Iconic SP will follow the same approach or find a way to run exclusively on a cleaner and more efficient version of the Wankel powertrain.
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