New Mazda RX Vision concept

[WolfpackS2k]

I never liked the RX8. Too big, not attractive styling (IMO) and dreadful fuel efficiency given the power output.

The first gen IS300 wasn't powerful enough / too heavy (pick one) to really make it applicable to this discussion. Also it was only available with a manual for 1-2 yrs of production and was next to impossible to find unless you special ordered it.


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[Entroper]

That's a pretty big mislabel on that graph (ND).

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Entroper

That's a pretty big mislabel on that graph (ND).

I didn't make it, never cared to fix it or make my own, the point is obvious in that the doom and gloom of Japanese RWD sports car sales is misplaced, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Mazda, and Nissan never targeted Mustang and Camaro sales, they knew that going in.

My problem is that it lumps 350Z and 370Z sales together, if you split them out all the cars are extremely close in volumes over their duration with the 370z noticeably falling below NC levels and the 350z maintaining a bit of a lead I believe.

[RandomDeception]

Originally Posted by totopo

I don't think toyota has space in their lineup between the 86 and the rumored supra.

I really hope that will be built, especially since it is rumoured that Toyota will collaborate with BMW on the car's design, chassis, and engine like how they did it with Subaru in order to cut costs.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by RandomDeception

I really hope that will be built, especially since it is rumoured that Toyota will collaborate with BMW on the car's design, chassis, and engine like how they did it with Subaru in order to cut costs.

Not rumored, it is explicitly confirmed that Toyota and BMW are collaborating on a sports oriented vehicle.

MUNICH, Germany (June 29, 2012) -- Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), met today with Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, at the BMW Group headquarters in Munich to announce the planned expansion of their existing cooperation initiated in December last year. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at a long-term strategic collaboration in four fields: joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and development on lightweight technologies.

Not speculation, directly from Toyota press release:
http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyot...laboration.htm

[RandomDeception]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Not rumored, it is explicitly confirmed that Toyota and BMW are collaborating on a sports oriented vehicle.

Not speculation, directly from Toyota press release:
http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyot...laboration.htm

That's wonderful to hear!

Hopefully the Toyota FT-1 (Supra) will come out of this rather than some Lexus coupe or sports sedan.

[Entroper]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

I didn't make it, never cared to fix it or make my own, the point is obvious in that the doom and gloom of Japanese RWD sports car sales is misplaced, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Mazda, and Nissan never targeted Mustang and Camaro sales, they knew that going in.

My problem is that it lumps 350Z and 370Z sales together, if you split them out all the cars are extremely close in volumes over their duration with the 370z noticeably falling below NC levels and the 350z maintaining a bit of a lead I believe.

True, if they were going to combine 350/370Z, then why not include NA/NB.

I agree it is a good counterpoint to all the doom articles about flagging 86 sales. That's just how sports cars work, every line on that graph drops after the second year except S2000, which didn't have strong sales at any time.

And of course like everyone else, I would be excited to see more lines on that graph from Toyota or Mazda. Or whatever Nissan comes up with to replace the 370Z, which is sure to be at the end of its life.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by reni

No. If auto manufacturers could just easily remove structural parts and have a lighter car that still meets rigidity and safety requirements, they would have done it already.

??? I don't see where I suggested removing structural parts! I'm an aero structural engineer, btw, and I have designed road vehicles. Yeah, I know that structural integrity is a thing...

My point was that the 350/370Z are heavy because they are *literally* Nissan's 2-seat version of an Infiniti luxury sedan.

A purpose-built platform for a sports car/sports coupe could/should easily be much lighter-weight without resorting to expensive materials or manufacturing techniques (and without removing critical structures!).

Making a car lighter requires more engineering and more testing, which probably leads to something that is more difficult/time consuming to build in the factory, not to mention more expensive materials would have to likely be used as well.

I'll turn this on its head and say that making a bigger HEAVIER car requires engineering and testing, and is not any less difficult/time consuming to build. Slightly more so, really (requires more space and stronger equipment, etc. but this is minor in terms of overall production cost)...

If keeping weight minimized is a major design priority for *everyone* involved in vehicle development, you *can* save weight using conventional materials and manufacturing techniques, which will *reduce* costs.

But if you just grab your company's rwd luxobarge and decontent it and put it on a shorter wheelbase, you are going to end up overweight...

[DarkSunrise]

I think the bigger issue with creating a lightweight purpose-built sports car platform isn't the cost of R&D or production, but whether there will be enough sales to offset that cost.

As a car company, you can justify creating a clean platform if you will move say 70,000 units/year. But if your sales are <10,000 units/year like the 370z, it's going to be hard to justify. That's why the Camaro is based off GM's Zeta platform, Mustang from Ford's D2C platform, 370z from Nissan's FM platform, etc.

Interestingly the Camaro and Mustang sell so incredibly well that I think Ford and GM could justify creating bespoke lightweight platforms for those cars. But even platform-shared with heavier sedans, their sales are so strong there's no reason for Ford/GM to make the switch and essentially throw money down the drain. Why change when the current system sells well and is cheaper to develop/produce?

In the end, there aren't enough customers for lightweight sports cars to make bespoke platforms worthwhile unless you charge tons of money for it (Porsche) or it serves other purposes for the company (Miata, Corvette). The number of people who want lightweight sports cars (and would actually buy them new) is far outweighed by people who just want cars that look sporty, feel substantial, ride comfortably and have lots of power.

Just my observations...

[totopo]

Originally Posted by ZDan

My point was that the 350/370Z are heavy because they are *literally* Nissan's 2-seat version of an Infiniti luxury sedan.

A purpose-built platform for a sports car/sports coupe could/should easily be much lighter-weight without resorting to expensive materials or manufacturing techniques (and without removing critical structures!).

I know people on this forum love saying that a lot, but I wonder how true it is. Owning a 370z... where are you going to take off the weight? it's pretty minimal already. Smaller suspension components? all aluminum anyways, that's just a handful of pounds. Smaller rear subframe? With the emphasis on mileage, I think all cars these days are trying to shed weight. I wonder how much weight you could shave off with a one-off chassis while keeping costs down. maybe 100lbs?

Look how the 370z compares to the boku expensive one off chassis z4, or the also expensive slk300:

370z
Hp 332
Tq 270
Length 167.2 "
Width 72.6 "
Height 51.8 "
Weight 3,278

z4-28
Hp 270
Tq 260
Length 166.9 "
Width 70.5 "
Height 50.8 "
Weight 3,263

SLK300
Hp 241
Tq 273
Length 162.8 "
Width 71.5 "
Height 51.2 "
Weight 3,241

see some trends? Maybe with a one off chassis you can save some weight with smaller dimensions, but I think at this range you don't really want to be shortening the wheelbase or track.

I think people are underestimating modern crash, emissions, and reliability standards, and reminiscing about the good old days when cars were death traps made of flimsy crap steel. Modern cars are heavy. I don't think it's easy for manufacturers to get <3000lbs, let alone even 3200lbs with >250 tq.

[WolfpackS2k]

Personally, also as an engineer, I think you're overestimating. If Mazda, the tiny company that it is, can build a sub 2300 lb sports car then just about anyone can build a 300/3000 rwd car for under $35k.


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[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by totopo

I know people on this forum love saying that a lot, but I wonder how true it is. Owning a 370z... where are you going to take off the weight?

Look how the 370z compares to the boku expensive one off chassis z4, or the also expensive slk300:

That's the point though, it isn't a luxury coupe with bespoke leather interior and an interior noise requirement of an empty church like the BMW or Merc you're comparing to or the Infiniti it's based off of.

They would have to take a similar approach to Toyota and Mazda with the 86 and ND, if you design around less load and not prioritize comfort or noise (i.e. not lugging around 4 people in cushy seats with a 350 hp 3.7L motor powering it and still have a 'quiet' interior at freeway speeds) you can design a less beefy chassis that still meets all the requirements. Mazda's 'gram strategy' is effective, "if we use 4 lug wheels we put less stress on the drivetrain because it's lighter which means we can lighten the rest of the drivetrain which means we can lighten the interface between the wheel and the axle because the 4 lugs don't need to be as beefy as we thought" it's a cascading effect if you're willing to commit to it.

Sure you can interpret this as "less rigidity" as some have posted above, but I don't think anybody is accusing Toyota or Mazda of putting out a weak chassis... There may not be 500 lbs to find in the current 370Z if you were willing to massage everything, but I don't think 3,000 lbs (a 200 lb weight drop) is an unreasonable target as others have agreed. Mazda dropped nearly as much going from NC to ND, and that's a much harder goal to accomplish if you're sitting at around 2,500 lbs to begin with.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by totopo

I know people on this forum love saying that a lot, but I wonder how true it is. Owning a 370z... where are you going to take off the weight?

It's too late for a car built on an existing luxury platform. You can't "add" light weight.

Look how the 370z compares to the boku expensive one off chassis z4, or the also expensive slk300:

Those all are or were luxury cars first, "sports" cars second (or not at all IMHO).

Now consider the sports car you could build on the FR-S chassis:
Move the engine, trans, firewall, windshield and front-seaters aft about 20" (losing the back seats), add revs and voila, 240hp 2750 lb. 50/50 sports car, no problemo...

[totopo]

Originally Posted by WolfpackS2k

Personally, also as an engineer, I think you're overestimating. If Mazda, the tiny company that it is, can build a sub 2300 lb sports car then just about anyone can build a 300/3000 rwd car for under $35k.


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While I agree the miata is an impressive feat of engineering as an engineer, you should be able to see how they shaved that weight.

FR-s
Length 166.7
Width 69.9
Height 50.6
wt 2758

Miata
Length 154.1
Width 68.3
Height 48.6
Wt 2332

So the Miata is 426 lbs lighter than the fr-s. If you take into account the difference in dimensions, the fr-s has about 10% more surface area, which accounts for about 250 lbs, leaving about 175 lbs. If you look at the 2015 miata, a convertible saved them 80lbs over the hard top, which leaves you with 95 lbs or so.

With the lighter weight, everything else is lighter. have you seen that stripped off frame? it's like a go-kart. The suspension arms are tiny, the driveshaft is short, the axles are tiny. the brake rotors are tiny, the brake calipers are tiny, the wheels + tires are tiny. Also no rear seats.

So while it is an impressive feat of engineering, I don't think it really proves anything. Its also about as expensive than the twins. (i thought less weight = less metal = cheap)

I just find it really hard to believe that all this time car manufactures could have made a 300hp/3000lb car for $35k but no one wanted to. If you go around to alot of the forums, that's the car that everyone wants but can't have. People are unhappy with the power of the twins/miata, and the weight of the 370z, mustang, camaro.

Look at the s2k, one off chassis, 160tq, 240hp, 2865 lbs, and yet >$40k in 2015 dollars. (and people qq'd about the hp)

Look at the 370z, they evidently think it wasnt worth the costs for a one off chassis, and even with the cost savings of using a chassis with a decent volume, and using an engine that's used in like every single car they sell, it still MSRP'd at $35k when it came out, now down to $30k, but back up to $34k (though you can get them more for like 30-31) if you want the viscous lsd and the fixed brake calipers.

I think the best chance we have is if GM or Ford try to make one with a 3.0L v6, but I don't think they really have much reason to given the camaro and mustang.

Or if traction control is advanced enough where people can try making cheap mr cars again without all the drivers killing themselves.