Friday, January 29, 2010

Mazda's RX-7 Dilemma - To Build or Not to Build Read more

At October's Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda highlighted its next procreation Sky Series of powertrains, proof that the Asian automaker sees a long future for gasoline and diesel engines. Its advise department also spent a short time mentioning the Kiyora construct car as substantially as something we've seen before -- a dual-fueled Premacy hybrid minivan powered by a rotary engine that crapper separate on hydrogen fuel.


What was conspicuously abstracted from the stand however, was a planned sports automobile concept fitted with an updated version of Mazda's next-generation, gas-powered rotary, codenamed the 16X. Of course, we are talking about the next generation RX-7 here. The current four-door RX-8 rotary is well-known for its inferior than satisfactory mileage, heavy oil consumption and flat mid-range torque, issues that engineers have been working to solve with the 16X for the next RX-7 (possibly called RX-9). The sketch you see here, which is one artist's impression of how the automobile could look, incorporates styling hints from the RX-8 and a frame organisation from recent swooping concept cars like the Kiyora. If built, the automobile is due to lose around 220 lbs in weight over the RX-8 and gain the fuel-sipping i-stop system in addition to an automobile assisted turbo.


The Hiroshima-based consort first revealed the 16X cyclical prototype engine at the 2007 Yeddo Motor Show, and at the time hinted that we could look forward to a special surprise at Yeddo in 2009. That didn't happen. In its \"Sustainable Zoom-Zoom\" declaration back in primeval 2007, we advert consort bosses saying that a automobile powered by the next generation cyclical engine would realty in showrooms in late 2010. That won't happen, either. The scheme downturn saw to that.

Mazda has been impact specially hornlike by the worldwide recession. With orbicular sales dropping by nearly 19% this year, compared to the first 10 months of last year, and sales of the binary award-winning MX-5 plummeting by over 26%, the consort is not exclusive losing profits and having to lay off workers, but is registering measurable dips in its sort identity. Fitted with the exclusive underway creation cyclical engine in the lineup, RX-8 figures have also dramatically dropped, causing concern not exclusive amongst crowning management but hundreds of engineers -- many of whom connected the consort wanting to work on the rotary.

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