Light shone on future style
Tokyo Motor Show concept established new look for future Mazdas, reports David Linklater.
Seven years on from its Shinari concept, Mazda is taking time to reflect on its Kodo styling philosophy. The Vision Coupe revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show on Wednesday represents the second generation of the company’s distinctive design ethos.
The Vision Coupe is not representative of a particular future production model, but just as Shinari shaped every new Mazda from the 2012 CX-5 onwards, this new concept is a clear indication of how the maker’s future production models will look.
As ever, Mazda’s design aims are lofty. At a media preview of the Vision Coupe in Tokyo prior to its show-launch, global design and brand style boss Ikuo Maeda talked about the ‘‘car as art’’ and the ‘‘beauty that is special to cars’’.
For us non-car-designers, here are the main design developments showcased on Vision Coupe that move it forward from the current Mazda range: there’s more emphasis on styling heritage, an absence of fussy lines and painstaking attention to detail when it comes to the way light reflects on the car.
Maeda says the ‘‘beautiful proportions’’ of the Mazda R360 coupe (1960) and Luce rotary coupe (1969) were an inspiration for Vision. In profile, it’s a classic coupe.
The main aim of new-gen Kodo is elegance, explains Maeda: ‘‘Not many cars these days can be described as elegant. Today, the status of the car is complicated; elegance is not something that can be created with 20 instant designs.
‘‘I am inspired by artworks that are carefully considered, but understated.
‘‘I decided to move away from the current animalistic vitality that defines our current range of cars ... to express beauty with carefully considered simplicity and elegance.’’
Vision Coupe is devoid of extraneous detail, but it’s still an extraordinarily complex design in many ways. Key to its visual impact is the shape of the side panels.
‘‘We turned the vehicle’s body side into a huge concave form,’’ says Maeda. ‘‘This area reflects the surroundings and creates dynamic transformations in the light as the car moves. Creating these reflections is what brings the car to life.’’
The same principles were explored in the previous RX Vision concept, but the new Vision Coupe is next-level design.
The desire to manipulate those reflections so carefully was cause for Mazda to reconsider its commitment to clay modelling during the concept’s two-year development programme.
‘‘Mazda still believes in the value of hand-made designs,’’ says Maeda. ‘‘But the reflection of the Vision coupe was created with a slightly different method.
‘‘Of course, the main sculpting work was done by hand. But on this car the degree of curvature is constantly changing, and even a master craftsman cannot imagine what kind of reflection will be created.
‘‘We decided to use digital simulation to help create the flowing reflection we were after. We repeated a cycle of clay modelling, then digital modelling, then back to clay.
‘‘In future models, we will be aiming for a depth of expression that we call ‘art of light’.’’