Mazda Furai Concept – Back to the Future

©Isaac Hernández, All Rights Reserved .

Photo gallery at MercuryPress.com
Video in Action on YouTube

This astonishing concept car is ready to race at Le Mans. To prove it, the only Japanese manufacturer to ever have won the 24-hour race took our correspondent for some scary fast spins around the legendary Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It´s not often that you get 2 g’s in a concept car. Isaac Hernández lived to tell us about it, and to take the pics.

Mazda has shown four nature-inspired concepts within the last year that have been criticized as being too fantastic. Their flowing lines looked too crazy to make it to a factory line… until now.
Meet Furai, what Mazda calls “something in between a race car and the wildest sports car out there.” Built on the Courage C65 chassis that Mazda raced at the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) for 2005 and 2006, it’s powered by a 450-hp three-rotor Wankel rotary engine. Mazda teamed up with BP to fuel it by ethanol E100, the first time this has ever been done with a rotary engine.

Full review available for publication.

Other Nagare concepts
Nagare. LA Auto Show November 2006
Ryuga. Detroit 2007
Hakaze. Geneva 2007
Taiki. Tokyo 2007