Mazda at the London motor show 2008

By Ben Whitworth

Motor Shows

22 July 2008 13:50

Mazda's not a company afraid of striking out on a limb every now and then. And it rammed home its rotary-engined know-how with a brace of sports cars featuring its Wankel motor at the London show. Shame there were no real world debuts, though...

What's new on Mazda's London motor show stand?

Mazda’s incredibly cool Furai concept car makes its European debut today – and the car looks pretty amazing in the flesh. Fresh from its weekend of humiliating supercars as it blasted up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed earlier this month, the Furai pushes Mazda’s line-up of flowing ‘Nagare’ concept cars to the extreme.

Not only does its rippling composite body make Batman’s wheels look more than a little dull, they also play a key aerodynamic role in keeping the car suckered to the track. Get past the Furai and you can also see the R3, Mazda’s revised RX-8. Click here for our driving impressions of this revised rotary sports car.

Say what you will about the validity of concept cars, but you simply cannot ignore a 460bhp triple-rotor race car that can smoke its way to 60mph in 3.2 seconds and onto a 172mph top speed. Especially one that runs on ethanol…

Some bright spark in the marketing department came up with the inspired idea to float a Mazda 2 from the ceiling amid a flock of purple paper birds. Nope, we've no idea why, either!

The Furai looks incredible – and it sounds even better. Log on to CAR Online in the next week to see our exclusive ride in this madcap racer.

Click here to go to CAR's London motor show A-Z homepage

By Ben Whitworth