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MotorTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Hi there.
00:06 I am standing next to the undisputed star
00:09 of the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, the Mazda RX Vision.
00:13 And this car previews the next Mazda RX sports car,
00:17 whatever they're gonna call it.
00:19 And while you can quibble with certain
00:21 little tiny details of the design,
00:22 no you can't, just look at this thing.
00:25 Long, low, wide, sexy, carbon fiber wheels.
00:29 It's got everything you want on a modern sports car.
00:32 And it's got something else.
00:34 Eventually, under this hood, there will be a rotary engine.
00:38 They announced that they're working
00:39 on the next generation rotary,
00:41 and they're gonna call it Skyactiv-R.
00:44 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the original RX-7.
00:48 And between now and then, Mazda is claiming
00:51 that they're gonna somehow engineer their way
00:53 around the rotary's Achilles heel.
00:56 And that is, Wankels are not efficient.
00:59 My quibble with the new rotary is this.
01:01 By 2018, the global automotive enthusiast community
01:05 will be so used to lag-free turbos
01:08 and instantaneous electric torque,
01:10 who's gonna wanna wait around for a rotary
01:12 to get up to speed?
01:13 Now look, I love rotaries.
01:14 Revving a car up to 9,000, 10,000, 11,000 RPMs, totally fun.
01:19 But I just think we're gonna be so spoiled by that.
01:22 And then people say, "Oh, no, no, but rotary,
01:23 "it's part of Mazda's DNA, it's very important."
01:25 But people said the same thing about air-cooled Porsches.
01:29 We're gonna have to wait and see.
01:30 From Tokyo, this is Johnny Lieberman for MotorTrend.
01:34 (upbeat music)
01:36 (upbeat music)