We’ve always liked concept cars, those capture-the-imagination harbingers of the future that tantalize the senses and get us to thinking what driving might look like in the years ahead. No, not the trivial ones that explore nonsensical designs that will, and should, never come to pass. We’re talking hand built concepts that push us to consider their attendant innovations and eye-candy design, and of course their possible production intent. Mazda’s Iconic SP is one such concept.
Presented in a vivid Viola Red to accentuate the car's shape and bodylines, the Iconic SP's bold design, execution, and vision get the blood pumping as one imagines life behind the wheel of this sleek and sinewy sports car. Now, according to reports, this concept may well be heading toward reality. Color us intrigued.
Mazda Iconic SP Design
Unveiled at the Japan Mobility Show last year, the Iconic SP clearly illustrates that Mazda still knows how to tantalize the senses with iconic sports car design. Most notably, it did this in the past with its RX-7 and its continuing favorite, the ever-popular Miata. Both of these models created a sensation with buyers from the start. While the RX-7 is now a part of automotive history (with the RX-8 never catching on in the same way), the Miata remains as a cornerstone sports car for the masses that’s popular on the street and on the track for amateur racing.
With the Iconic SP, Mazda leans far forward with this lightweight sports car’s low-slung stance, sensuously flowing lines, and exotic scissor doors. While the concept clearly suggested the potential for a future model at its unveiling, we would imagine its more complex scissor doors could fall by the wayside in a production model as a nod to cost, manufacturability, and mainstreaming this sports car for a larger audience. It’s not that intriguing door designs like this can’t be done. It has been in many instances throughout the automotive timeline with variations on models the likes of the BMW i8, Tesla Model X, Lamborghini Countach, and many others. It’s just that it isn’t likely in the scheme of things.
Rotary Engine With Options
Worth noting is that Mazda aims the Iconic SP in a green direction with the concept’s scalable two-rotor Wankel engine said to exclusively generate electricity to augment battery power for the car’s electric motors. Heading in this direction seems a natural since series hybrids, or extended range electric vehicles, are increasingly seen by automakers as an attractive option to battery electric vehicles at this point in time.
That said, this isn’t a sure thing. Rumors are flying about from seemingly credible sources that point to different, and perhaps multiple, propulsion strategies. Those include parallel hybrid and all-electric notions of how the car should be motivated. That powertrain vagary makes sense this early in the game since a production Iconic SP – should one actually come to pass – will certainly address the needs and whims of the market closer to a launch date.
A Hydrogen Iconic SP?
Interestingly, Mazda has teased the potential for running the car’s front midship rotary engine on a zero-carbon fuel like hydrogen, something this automaker has experimented with for some time, including with the RX-8 RE developmental vehicle that Green Car Journal editors drove in earlier years. Clearly, offering a variant of this sports car on zero-carbon hydrogen would make the equation all the more compelling.