Mazda Furai

The Mazda Furai is a concept car revealed on 27 December, 2007 and manufactured by Mazda. A teaser image of the vehicle was released on 11 December, 2007. The Furai officially debuts at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Wing and Exhaust in detail from the Mazda Furai on display at the 2008 Canadian International Auto Show.The Furai (風籟, Fūrai?), meaning "sound of the wind", is the fifth and last of the Mazda Nagare line of concept cars that have been made by Mazda since 2006. The chassis is based on the Courage Compétition C65 Le Mans Prototype that Mazda last used to compete in the American Le Mans Series, two seasons previously[3] and is designed to use E100 ethanol fuel, it is powered by a new generation 3-rotor wankel engine that puts out 450 brake horsepower (340 kW). The engine is developed and built by renowned rotary tuner, Racing Beat, who also built the car's rotary-shaped muffler canister.

The car bears the #55 number that of its 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans winning ancestor, the 787B. Unlike many concept cars, the Furai is fully functional and is currently being tested at various tracks. It has run at Laguna Seca and Buttonwillow.

Head designer, Laurens van den Acker, has stated in an interview with Top Gear magazine that there are possibilities of the Furai being used for racing in Le Mans, and he also has strong hopes that the car could be brought to the market.

Honda Acura Advanced

Acura is calling this rakish coupe the Advanced Sports Car Concept, but it's essentially the replacement for the much-missed NSX. It's not a direct replacement, however: The engine sits up front, and it's unlikely the production version will feature the all-aluminum construction of the original.

The original NSX, launched back in 1990, may have forced Ferrari to build better handling, more reliable cars, but Honda reportedly lost money on it. This car is designed to be less expensive to manufacture, although it'll be powered by an all-new V-10 engine, which pays homage to Honda's Formula One effort, although F1 regulations have forced the teams to replace V-10s with V-8s. The rear-drive biased all-wheel-drive platform architecture negates the need to develop an all-new front-engine, rear-drive platform, for example.

Honda Motor Company president Takeo Fukui presented the car at the Detroit show. The production version is expected for the 2009 model year.