Mazda Furai concept: This one's a runner
By JONATHAN WONG
To this day, Mazda is the only Japanese manufacturer to claim an overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its four-rotor 787B back in 1991. As homage, the Furai (Japanese for "sound of the wind") concept that Mazda will show in Detroit wears the same number, 55, as the historic orange and green racer that drove to victory in France.
Also fitting is that the concept has race-car genes--built on a Courage C65 chassis that Mazda campaigned in the American Le Mans Series a couple of years ago. With that as a basis, Mazda North America design boss Franz von Holzhausen spearheaded the design in his California studio.
The design takes the flowing language of the Nagare concept shown at the 2006 Los Angeles auto show one step further. Mazda says the Furai evokes the raw desire for everything the car represents, while the Nagare possessed an insightful and spirited design.
To back up the emotional styling, Mazda enlisted the help of the race-car experts from Swift Engineering to make sure the Furai's performance matched its looks. Swift went to work on keeping the car planted at speed and providing sufficient cooling for the hot-running, midship three-rotor 20B engine, all while working with the design team to keep the vision intact.
It seems that every auto concept these days has a green angle. The Furai's is that the rotary is tuned to run on pure ethanol and makes a clean 450 hp.
Before the Detroit debut, Mazda entrusted the Furai with its ALMS team driver Jamie Bach for laps around Laguna Seca with impressive results. Swift claims that the concept possesses roughly 80 percent of the downforce of the original Courage bodywork to keep the car composed around turns, while the ethanol-burning rotary shoots it out of corners.
Luckily, it escaped the session unscathed and will be in Detroit in one piece for all to see.
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Print | posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 10:18 AM