Race Car Talk

Mazda is going to make the 2008 Detroit Auto Show something that car enthusiasts will never forget as they drool over the brand new and advanced concepts that they will be showing off. The Japanese automaker has decided to take the world by storm and begin the new era of sports cars with their new Furai or Nagare concept.

You might remember that we posted an article on the Nagare concept when we first heard news of it last year. Ford’s Japanese affiliate have released few details on the Furai (”sound of the wind”), but did say it would use the Courage C65 racecar chassis that Mazda campaigned in the 2005 American Le Mans Series, as well as that vehicle’s 450-horsepower three-rotor rotary engine. The Furai concept is designed to run on 100-percent ethanol (E100).

Says Franz von Holzhausen, Mazda’s North American director of design, “Furai purposely blurs boundaries that have traditionally distinguished street cars from track cars. Historically, there has been a gap between single-purpose racecars and street-legal models — commonly called supercars — that emulate the real racers on the road. Furai bridges that gap like no car has ever done before.”

No related posts.