There are some years at the LA Auto Show in which the OEM’s do not have much to say or debut in their exhibits. However, I think so far Mazda has had a pretty good streak going in LA over the last few years or so. If they were not taking the sheet off a new car they were previewing the next big thing from their company. This year Mazda hit us with a double-whammy as their Japanese CEO Takashi Yamanouchi (elected as the Motor Press Guild keynote speaker this year) announced in his address that “as long as I am involved with this company (Mazda) there will be a rotary engine in our line-up” which basically confirmed the wishes of wankel-heads around the world that Mazda will likely release another RX sports car to follow up the now deceased RX-8.
Their second bulletpoint was the debut of their new “Skyactiv” technology which is actually a combination of technologies and engineering techniques meant to squeeze maximum efficiency from their cars. By their math, the up-coming Skyactiv version of the Mazda3 will be able to reach 4ompg realistically without sacrificing performance. Although the Skyactiv Mazda3 is a little while off they did debut the new 2013 Mazda CX-5 which will host the full suite of Skyactiv technologies. The CX-5 is also the debut of their new “Kodo” design language hence the agressive yet free-flowing lines. Hopefully, Mazda will put us behind the wheel of the new CX-5 and eventually the Skyactiv Mazda3 in the near future. For now check out some pictures of the other slick Zoom-Zooms Mazda is currently displaying in their exhibit at the LA Auto Show.