There are so many possibilities that could come of this.
Many of us were devastated when we discovered that the Mazda 6 Sedan was to be discontinued in the US (along with the CX-3 subcompact crossover). The 6 has long been one of our favorite midsize family sedans because it perfectly combines driving fun, stunningly good looks, and a premium feel into a single package. It remains unknown whether the rumored rear-wheel-drive platform and inline-six-powered sedan are still happening. One can only hope.
But what we do know for certain is that Mazda remains committed to driving pleasure and performance. The folks at the New Nissan Z forum have uncovered a recently filed trademark from Mazda for a stylized R emblem, pictured here.
Could this be for a future performance model or, better yet, several of them? We can easily imagine the entire lineup getting the high-performance treatment and a new Mazdaspeed3 hot hatch would be the ideal consolation prize for the 6's departure. But that'd be in a perfect world and we don't live in one. A far more likely scenario would be new performance models that make use of the rotary engine range extender technology currently used in the Mazda MX-30.
And this leads us to ask the big question: is this part of a broader RX revival? The last time Mazda built an RX-branded rotary-powered model was the RX-8, which was discontinued in 2012.
Its third-generation RX-7 predecessor remains a legend to this day, especially the 1992-2002 model from the Japanese sports car glory days. It was back in 2015 when Mazda unveiled the drop-dead gorgeous RX-Vision Concept at the Geneva Motor Show and we've yet to see a production version.
We were told by Mazda that the concept would mainly serve as inspiration to other future road cars (it did) but refused to outright commit to building it. Has this changed? The new rotary technology is done and ready, the design talent is there, and Mazda could use a new halo model. Fingers crossed.
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