Mazda's RX-Vision GT3 Is the Off-Limits Rotary Sports Car You Can Now Drive in Gran Turismo

The Mazda RX-Vision concept is just too good a design to exist merely as a static object, a concept car without a future out on the road. Its long nose and dramatically swept-back cabin are simply begging to be viewed in motion. If you've been waiting for the day this low-slung sculpture on wheels becomes fire-breathing, rotary-powered, roadgoing thing, that day is here. Well, virtually at least. The Mazda RX-Vision GT3 Concept is now downloadable and playable in Gran Turismo Sport on PS4, and it is awesome.

The Mazda RX-Vision GT3 Concept takes the already-hot RX-Vision's original design and reimagines it as a full-blown race car (hence the "GT3" in the name). The fenders now walk that fine line between cartoonishly wide and GT racer flared wheel perfection. The RX-Vision was low to begin with, but the GT3 version takes it to the very edge of realistic ground clearance with a large carbon-fiber front splitter, a rear diffuser that hangs millimeters above the tarmac, and a gigantic rear wing that in theory squats everything down even further. It's glorious, and we wish it was real.

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This RX-Vision might be in-game only, but a recent patent filing could hint that a real-life successor to the RX-7 and RX-8 sports cars are on their way. The patent details a front-engine, rear-drive car powered by a Wankel rotary (among other possible combustion engines) and supplemented by a complex hybrid system comprised of in-wheel electric motors up front, a supercapacitor, another electric motor behind the engine, and a small lithium-ion battery pack. It's a crazy idea, but if Mazda was considering putting such a drivetrain into production we imagine it would appear first in a flagship supercar like the on-again, off-again RX-9.

Whatever Mazda is planning, for now you can at least see the RX-Vision in action in Gran Turismo Sport and dream of what could be. The RX-Vision GT3 Concept is available for download starting today.