It’s called Furai, and designer Franz von Holzhausen says it’s supposed to look like streamers fluttering in the wind. It’s the fifth concept in Mazda’s Nagare (flow) series and the visual realization of zoom zoom. If you say so, Franz.
But then the car comes roaring down Laguna Seca’s pit lane. I can’t find the words. It looks so…so…bitchin! I’ve regressed to sputtering seventh-grade superlatives.
Of course, there’s more to it than that—you need an engine, in this case a 458-horsepower, triple-rotor race-ready unit running on pure ethanol (E100)—the first rotary to do so. Mazda refers to the rotary/ethanol combo as sustainable zoom zoom—not that flowing fields of corn will spring to mind when the Furai hits the stand at the rapidly approaching 2008 Detroit auto show.
In addition to the aerial assault, the video team also brought along a Porsche 911 GT3 as a camera car. Mounted to the hood in a complicated arrangement of gaffers’ tape and suction cups is a massive HD camera. Off the back bumper is a duplicate camera mount for lead/follow footage. It’s an impressive setup that manages to raise eyebrows even amongst the jaded crew of journalists in attendance. As the Furai starts to flow over Laguna’s twists and turns, it’s clear the GT3 will be doing a lot of following today, with the Porsche arriving in the pits some 5-10 seconds after the Furai during its shakedown laps. And from what we’re told, the Furai’s driver is taking it easy.
Bach hits the starter, and after a split second of metallic rasp, the rotary behind us roars to life. At idle, there’s only a fraction of the vibration you’d expect from a race car that makes noises so large—a credit to the simplicity and smoothness of a rotary, even one that’s been peripherally ported and prepped for ALMS circuit racing.
We get two laps—an out and then a flyer—and Bach is clearly intent on making the most of them. Down pit lane, he hits the rev limiter, creating an awful mechanical whine that raises the hair on my neck. A quick ka-chunking upshift and we’re roaring towards the braking cones of turn two.
As Bach slices through turns three and four, he takes a fast, classic racing line, using up as much of the track as possible, but carefully avoiding the raised humps at each apex. It’s his ass if the car’s carefully sculpted bodywork gets damaged.
The sound emanating from Furai’s tailpipes is one of pure pain and fury. It’s the shriek of millions of ethanol molecules crying out in unison, as they’re brutally compressed and set afire. At wide-open throttle, Furai sends up a bone-chilling howl. Apparently, the name is Japanese for the “sound of wind.” Wind emanating from where, the depths of hell?
A Mazda underpinned by the Courage C65 chassis was campaigned in the 2006 ALMS season in which Mazda placed third in the manufacturers’ championship.
It certainly feels like a top tier race-car setup as I’m first lifted at the entrance of Laguna Seca’s famous corkscrew and then immediately flattened by the gs exiting turn nine. The only thing bending and compressing in this car appears to be my spine.
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