Mazda will lift the lid on a new rotary engine this week at the Tokyo Motor Show.
The SkyActiv-R will slot into the sports car silhouette that the rotary pioneer has been teasing in the build-up to the show.
Mazda’s president Masamichi Kogai confirmed the new engine, saying that the rotary will fit into a sports car.
“It is a two-door, two-seating. It is a pure sports car design. We have MX-5 and another icon is a rotary sports car. We haven’t talked about market reach, but this would be in that segment.”
He added that rotary engines “have lots of issues and we need to solve and we need to solve each of them.”
Head of research and development Kiyoshi Fujiwara told UK Autocar that modern eco demands had been dismissed by the market as being able to meet current standards.
“The SkyActiv engineers worked on rotary and have it cutting edge tech, he said. It is an essential part of our DNZ and it will be passed onto future engineers. It is synonymous with the brand.
“Sometime in the future it will return and be called SkyActiv R.”
The engine is still in development, but the concept car will be revealed this week and the rotary engine will continue to be worked on to “strict targets”.
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