Enthusiasts have spent years bemoaning the death of Mazda’s legendary RX nameplate. The last-generation RX-8 left much to be desired and felt like the company had given up on its history. But if a new report from Japan’s Best Car is to be believed, those acolytes may soon be satiated.
With the Tokyo Motor Show just a week away, we’re receiving tasty tidbits of information on a number of future-forward products soon coming out of Japan. And one of these reports involves a new Mazda sports coupe. According to Best Car, Mazda has been secretly engineering a new front-engined, rear-wheel-drive sports car that could bring back the RX nameplate and is getting ready to debut it at the forthcoming show.
Powered by an announced, but not detailed, new 3.0-liter inline 6-cylinder engine, the outlet reports that the engine will be debut as a part of Mazda’s new Skyactiv-X family. It also claims that the engine will be coupled to a mild-hybrid system, similar to what a number of luxury manufacturers are doing at the moment to both improve torque and fuel economy.
While little else is known about the forthcoming coupe, Best Car says Mazda is hoping to deliver the car with over 350 horsepower, which would put the car firmly in the Mustang, Camaro, and Supra territory. Pricing was also theorized, with the outlet saying that it would cost between, “5 million to 6 million yen.” At the current conversion rate, you’d be looking at around $45,000.
As to the veracity of these claims, we reached out to Mazda for comment, a spokesperson replied with, “We’re excited to bring this [inline 6-cylinder] powertrain to our future vehicles as we continue on our path to premium. We know our fans will be yearning for additional details, however, specific models, performance figures and market rollout will be disclosed at an appropriate time.”
Adding fuel to the Mazda fire is a recently captured video of a camouflaged Mazda RX-8 running around Germany’s Nurburgring. When The Drive reached out to Mazda at the time, the company responded saying that the car was just being used to update its engineers and test driver’s Nurburgring licenses. But we’re left wondering why camouflage a car if it were just being used for licensing?
Furthermore, last year, Mazda wowed the world with its RX Vision concept, which would indicate that the company was readying a new RX sports car. More recent reports, though, state that the car is being engineered with a hybrid rotary drivetrain, not the new inline 6-cylinder. We’re left with more questions than answers but as mentioned, the Tokyo Motor Show is next week and if we’re to believe these reports, then we may get those answers sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.