There is still a capability within Mazda to bring back a rotary engine. Don’t get carried away yet though, it is far too early to put money away towards the apparant next-gen RX-7 or RX-8. Even so, company boss Masamichi Kogai gave confirmation to Autocar that the Japanese automaker have dedicated an engineering team towards making the Wankel better.
The production team have been given the difficult job of attempting to build the rotary stack up to modern internal combustion engines when it comes to emmisions and fuel-economy standards. These were never really two of Wwankel’s strong points. Kogai told Autocar that they were working “very enthusiastically”. He didn’t speak about any future RX-vehicles or mention how big the team was, but last year it was reported that 30 engineers were partnered with universaties to work on the engine’s design update.
There were some issues when it came to keeping up with emissions and fuel economy, but after that in June 2012, Mazda created it’s final rotary for an RX-8. There have been occassional rumors about a comeback ever since. One possibility was a design named the 16X which was meant to provide more torque and have improved fuel economy. One other option was a small displacement unit as a range-extender in an electric Mazda2.
Speculations about a new RX-7 have been going around for years. Kogai clearly stated in 2013 that it wasn’t going to happen. Last year he was asked the question again and once more he gave the same answer.
