Mazda's Furai concept, unveiled January 14th, at the 2008 North American International Auto Show.The Furai ,which means 'sound of the wind' in Japanese, is the fifth radical design in Mazda's Nagare series of concept cars. Mazda says the Furai was created with a particular emphasis on guiding air over and through the vehicle's body. Based on a Courage C65 racing chassis for the American Le Mans Series, it has a 450 hp, Renesis-based R20B three-rotor rotary engine, tuned to run on ethanol and ethanol gasoline blends.It is the first time a racing three-rotor rotary engine has been fueled by ethanol.
Track cars are, by their capabilities, ill suited for highway use, and also not strictly road-legal. Some supercars can be raced, but are not properly equipped for it. The aim of Furai is to bridge this gap. Mazda neither intends to race Furai, nor is it a supercar that the company plans to build and sell. Furai is a design that lives between these these extremes. Franz von Holzhausen,
Mazda's North American director of design, who is behind the Furai, explains: 'We are looking for a way to bridge the gap between Mazda Motorsports and the production vehicles in our lineup. The mind sets of road-car and racing car fans are quite different, so the purpose of Furai is to find a meeting point for these disparate interests.'
