That was Mazda's plan. But the financial crisis at the end of the 00s put a lid on the idea of a new RX-7, says a retired Mazda director.
Nobuhiro Yamamoto directed the development of the last Mazda RX-7 for now. But he was also responsible for the latest Mazda MX-5. The little Japanese is built on its very own platform.
And it is not quite as random as it may sound from the outside. For now, Nobuhiro Yamamoto, who has recently retired, reveals that a Mazda RX-7 should also have been built using the technique.
That's what Motor1 writes.
In an interview with the media, Nobuhiro Yamamoto explains that the development of the current MX-5 ND was already started when the NC model was just two years old in 2007.
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At least this is where Nobuhiro Yamamoto came into the picture. He was asked to sing along two tracks.
– At that time we were not looking at developing one car but two – a new MX-5 and an RX-7, says Nobuhiro Yamamoto via an interpreter to the media.
But when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 and caused the entire world's economic house of cards to topple, Mazda had to tighten its seat belt. In this way, a new RX-7, which the world has not seen since 2002, had to die.
Interestingly, Mazda did not continue with the development of the RX-8, which was actually in production until 2012. But Yamamoto has explained this on a previous occasion.
– Our dream is an RX-7. Not an RX-8. Customers want an RX-7, the now-retired Mazda boss told Australia's Cars Guide in 2014.
And although Mazda has since shown several wild concept cars and revived the wankel engine as a range extender for electric cars, we may never get the answer to what a new RX-7 could have become. Unfortunately.
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