Excited About The Rumoured Mazda RX-7/8 Successor? Sorry, It's Not Gonna Happen...

Like countless other petrolheads across the globe, we’d love to see a new rotary-powered Mazda monster to carry on the RX name. Judging by all the rumours and reports, it looked like we might have been on course to get our wish, potentially with something packing as much as 450bhp. But that excitement was most likely for nothing, as in an interview with Automotive News, Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai has confirmed that there are no plans to make a new RX sports car, saying “we don’t have that kind of vehicle in our future product plan.”

Rather than stump up the high development costs which would be involved with bringing back the RX name - last used on the RX-8 - the company has instead pledged to invest more in its efficiency-focused ‘Skyactiv’ technologies.

None of this comes as a big surprise. Making the company’s big sellers more efficient is an understandable choice to make, and many of the RX successor rumours did have a whiff of the ‘too good to be true’ about them. Regardless, it’s still a shame, as other than the incoming new MX-5, the Mazda range is a little lacking in the excitement department.