Mazda Furai
Posted by Dan Read at 10:00AM on Thursday 17 July, 2008 8 Comments
When Mazda asked if I'd like to ride in their Furai concept car, I nearly bit their generous little hands off.
Fresh from its appearance at Goodwood over the weekend, they trailered it to a top-secret location yesterday (maybe somewhere near Kemble Airfield) to let a few lucky sods have a go.
If you've not seen it yet, then have a good look. It's probably the most incredible-looking thing ever created - like a samurai warrior has gone mental with a block of carbon fibre, slicing into it, creating swooping lines and razor-sharp edges.
It uses a Courage chassis with a 450bhp Mazda rotary engine, which is good for about 130db - only 5db below the official medical 'pain threshold'. It's pretty much in F1 noise territory, but has a smoother, less yelpy edge to it.
So with earplugs wedged in, I wriggled into the cockpit alongside Mazda's resident racer, Mark Ticehurst - buttocks clenched, palms sweaty - and braced myself for takeoff.
The cabin is amazingly finished, with a curvy dash covered in alcantara and a set of blue buttons glowing in the rooflining. Not a toggle switch to be seen. But it all blurred when Ticehurst nailed it.
My eyeballs slammed into the back of their sockets and it felt like all my internal organs squidged together in a huddle.
We straddled the runway's white lines, which merged into a long, smudgy one as they disappeared underneath us.
We hit 185mph before Ticehurst got on the brakes, generating over 1g of force - enough to make my harness cut into my chest as I heaved forwards.
On the return run, he gave it a bit of a wiggle - criss-crossing the tarmac at about 100mph. The grip was immense, even on cold tyres.
It was a brief ride, but a hell of a rush. I even tried a little scream but my throat was too dry - unlike my seat...
Mazda won't be racing, or producing the Furai, which is a shame.
But if only one per cent of it filters into the rest of the range, the world will be a better place.
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8 Comments for "Mazda Furai"
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Sounds like an amazing car! I have a track day next weekend where I am letting a professional driver take me really really fast round Thruxton in an RX-8, a Cayman and a 355! I am looking forward to the eyeballs in the back of sockets and squidged internal organs thing A LOT!
Looks kind of like a Lotus Elise on steroids!!
I hate you. HATE HATE HATE.
After seeing photos of the Furai at the Detroit show, I was really looking forward to seeing it in person at Geneva, but the ******** didn't bring it.
I don't see why they aren't racing it. That thing would stand a damn good chance at Le Mans, I reckon!
This and the Gillet Vertigo are the two cars I'd like to see in the Stig's hands!
Can you please convince them to put that marvellous engine into an RX-8, and produce a limited series of say... a 100 of them just for us collectors?
Why do manufacturers do this? Spend all that time and money creating something we'd all sell our houses and grannies for, then refuse to make it and offer us something we don't want instead?
Mazda: Look at the shiny Furai!
Us: Wow! We'll take it!
Mazda: No you won't. You can't have it. It's ours. We won't let you. How's about a Mazda 3?
Us: Never darken our doors again.Sounds like good fun... you lucky git!!
Wonder what kind of fuel economy figures they get from that.