Mazda has today shared brand new images and details of its MX-5 Superlight concept. These join images released early last month giving the first glimpse of the concept’s rear quarter and a sketch of its interior.
Set to star for Mazda at next week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, the concept has been developed as something of a birthday present to itself, celebrating 20 years for the popular MX-5 sports car.
The MX-5’s folding roof stand, door handles and front windscreen have been replaced by a revised rear deck with streamlined rollbars, smooth door-skins and a dash-top that melds seamlessly with the bodywork. The MX-5 Superlight – as its name suggests – has been built as a study for advanced lightweight construction techniques. With no windows nor the weight of a folding roof, the MX-5 Superlight concept weighs in at just 995kg.
Bilstein suspension, Eibach springs and a 30mm lower ride height should ensure a drive as dynamic as the car’s styling suggests. Motivated by the same 93 kW 1,8-litre petrol engine and five-speed transmission of the road-going MX-5, a claimed 8.9 second sprint to 100km/h shaves a second off the regular model’s time. Four-piston fixed calipers and cross-drilled brake discs big enough to require a 50mm widening of the car’s track sit behind the same 17-inch alloy wheels of the current MX-5.
Designed at Mazda’s European studios in Oberusel, Germany, the MX-5 Superlight is understood to be a commemorative project to celebrate the MX-5’s 20th anniversary this year. Mazda says the MX-5 Superlight is strictly a concept-only, but as a study on improving weight reduction across the brand’s range, the Superlight may be a sign of things to come from Mazda.
Erectile DysfunctionAdapted from TheMotorReport
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January 8th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Keeping in mind America’s total lack of sweet light crude, and Obama’s promise of and intercity electric bullet train intercity Network as good as the one China alreasy has up and running, This car would do well on Lithium Batteries for the shorter hops required! Even the EV-1’s NiMh “Miracle Batteries” would do if the corporatist Shysters had not gobbled them up! Google, torrent the movie “Who Stole The Electric car” for the whole truth! This is a very pretty little machine. I want mine with a super-light weight body, probably carbon fiber, and crafted in China to keep the price down, and I want absolutely no planned obsolescence incorporated. I want the power-train to be swappable into a new body when I wear this one out, or tire of it. I want totally recyclable battery packs easily interchangeable of course, and I want superb craftsmanship too! We have heard from our satellite reconnaissance of the whole world. We are even aware by this means of freshwater lakes in Antarctica. We know there are no more large deposits of sweet light crude in the world. We know that the last unclaimed reserve of even poorer grade oil in the world is in Turkmenistan and await the halliburton pipe-dream up Afghanistan to steal it lut from Russia’s and China’s noses. Meanwhile an Oil hungry Asia competes with very strong currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan for a bigger share of a finite resource. Americans will by necessity have to curb their appetite for inefficient low compression gasoline spark ignition engines, and opt for 40% more efficient diesels on their way to totally Electric cars as that is their final homegrown resource. This little number makes me thin of the “Miata” but appears more adaptable to full Electric operation, with lower drag and even smoother lines. The GM(America) Volt is already out-dated, but this little bomb fits right into my heart, and I will look for this style for the short hops by battery the severe oil shortages are about to bring on my countrymen.