Mazda Iconic SP Designer Talks RX-7 Inspiration, Pop-Up Lights

Mazda Iconic SP Concept

Why do the lights pop out? Because they look cool, that’s why!

You’ll have a hard time finding someone who thinks Mazda’s rotary-electric sports car isn’t gorgeous. Top Gear magazine had the opportunity to interview the talented man who penned the Iconic SP concept. The Zoom-Zoom company’s chief designer Masashi Nakayama talks about how the creative juices came flowing.

As expected, we learn the RX-7 served as the main source of inspiration during the design process. As to why they decided to go with pop-up headlights, the answer was pretty simple: “Why not? It looks cool, right?” Nakayama went on to say that not everything has to make sense as the company strives to deliver a type of design that’s “beyond logic.”

A production model wouldn’t be a direct successor to the likes of the RX-7 or RX-8 since the rotary engine would not send power directly to the wheels. Instead, the two-rotor combustion engine would serve as a generator to charge a battery. In the concept, the ICE worked with gasoline, renewable fuels, and even hydrogen. The Iconic SP was technically a plug-in hybrid since it had a charging port for the unspecified battery pack.

The rear-wheel-drive concept had 365 hp on tap, effectively twice the power of a current-generation Miata with a 2.0-liter engine. Mazda already has a production model with a rotary engine that doesn’t have a mechanical connection to the wheels – the MX-30 e-Skyactiv R-EV small crossover.

Should a new sports car arrive later this decade, it would be the 13^th performance model with a rotary engine. It’ll be interesting to see whether those nifty headlights will make it to production considering stringent safety regulations have effectively killed pop-up lights. Ferrari did find a workaround by giving the Daytona SP3 sliding “eyelids” as shown in the video below. To be fair, the headlights don’t pop out but the effect is somewhat similar.

A New Rotary Sports Car Might Be Coming:

Source: Top Gear / YouTube