Mazda RX-7 Returning In 2017: Yamamoto

Mazda will bring back the much-loved RX-7 in 2017, with less weight, less complexity and a greater emphasis on driver involvement.

Speaking to TMR at the local launch of the facelifted MX-5, Mazda Motor Corporation's sports car chief Nobuhiro Yamamoto said that the return of the RX-7 will mark 50 years since the introduction of Mazda's first rotary-engined car, the Cosmo Sport, in 1967.

By the time the next-generation model arrives, it will have been 15 years since the RX-7 departed Mazda showrooms.

Production of the FD3S RX-7 ended in 2002, with that model built purely for the Japanese domestic market. Local RX-7 imports ceased in 1998.

Yamamoto was the powertrain head for the FD3S, and has a lot of fond memories of that car. He was also involved in the RX-7's win at Bathurst in 1992 - the last time he'd set foot in Australia.

As you would expect, bringing back the RX-7 has been high on his agenda.

However Yamamoto stressed that the new model wouldn't quite follow the lead of the FD RX-7. Asked if the next-generation RX-7 will feature forced induction, Yamamoto replied "maybe not".

"At this time it has not been determined. Maybe later in life it will be turbo, but to start with maybe not," he said to TMR.

Instead, Yamamoto favours a naturally-aspirated development of the new 16X rotary engine, which was unveiled in 2007 but has yet to find its way into a production car.

Displacing 1.6 litres (the previous-generation rotary, the 13B/Renesis, only displaced 1.3 litres), Yamamoto says the 16X is capable of up to 300 metric horsepower (220kW) in a naturally-aspirated configuration.