Leaked patents suggests Mazda is planning the Rotary’s return
In spite of continuously ruling out the return of the rotary engine, alleged patent documents have seemingly confirmed Mazda as working on a new generation of peripheral ported motors.
While the Hiroshima automaker has alluded to that the engine would only return as a range extender for electric vehicles, the Japanese inscribed documents, posted by Garage Alpha, shows the image of a turbocharger, indicating that it might well be a full-on production engine on its own and not simply a range extender.
It could therefore mean that a production version of the RX-Concept (pictured), shown the previous year at the Tokyo Motor Show, could well materialise as a long overdue replacement for the RX-8, although this was put aside by Mazda President and CEO, Akira Marumoto, who last year told drive.com.au that the model in question was only ever created to showcase its next generation Kodo design language.
“[The] RX Vision is a vision model for design development so we didn’t plan for production or commercialisation of this model. I am receiving this question [whether we can make a rotary engined sports car] maybe 100 times, and I will not commit. Nothing has been decided,” he said, adding at the same time that Mazda has no plans to produce a new line of MPS performance models, or indeed develop an all-out electric car.
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