Mazda RX-Z: Replacement for RX-8

The so-called concept car Maxda RX-Z is proposed as a conceptual vision project that may, according to the creator of the car, pre-empt the appearance of a successor rotary coupe.

As often happens in such cases, the automaker itself, in this case, Mazda Motor, does not have any official relation to the project, so to speak of any potential serial embodiment of the concept car can only be hypothetical. Nevertheless, the proposed project is of interest precisely because of its consistency in Mazda corporate style simultaneously with the introduction of something new, which is not peculiar for the Mazda vehicles.

The author of the RX-Z project is a student from Romania, Adrian Ciprian. While developing the RX-Z, he tried in the first place, to pay attention to design, using the main elements of the Mazda style, including the pentagonal lattice-”Smile”, which other independent designers, offering a vision of Mazda cars, stubbornly ignore. The author has preserved one of the main elements of the layout – rear door, swinging open against the motion: a similar pattern is found on modern production cars, perhaps, only in exceptional cases.

The fact that, in the opinion of the author, RX-Z should not have a rotary engine, was very surprising. The author is convinced that the best would be the presence of a hybrid power plant, which will include a diesel and two electric motors. Such an approach is unlikely to be used by Mazda Motor to create next-generation RX, since this name of the vehicle is an acronym that implies to a rotary engine, but in addition, the company continues to actively develop such power plants, which somehow remains its original card.