Soul Red Crystal

Not all reds are created equal. Learn about the unique process of developing Mazda’s signature colour.

From the 1960 R360 Coupe – a micro car that Mazda sold in Japan, and its first passenger car – to its current line-up, the brand has had a long history with the colour red. Deeply rooted in Japanese culture, red denotes strength and passion, and is used to depict the sun on the national flag. Believing that paint colour is one of the key elements of form, Mazda was determined to create the world’s most beautiful red when it began the development of the new Soul Red Crystal.

Creating Soul Red Crystal was a challenging process that required Mazda to reinvent the way cars are painted. With any beautiful object, the way the light dances across its surface forms part of its beauty. The interplay of light and form inspired Mazda to create a paint with exceptional depth and reflective quality.

To ensure visual perfection, the colour designer and master painter worked together to translate the designer’s colour choices perfectly onto cars. But to achieve a deep, lustrous finish, cars needed to be painted by hand. While this was possible in the case of Mazda’s concept cars, a new technique had to be developed in order to get the same quality of Soul Red Crystal on production models. Through a process called takuminuri, which translates to “artisan colouring”, painting robots were effectively taught to duplicate the techniques of Mazda’s best craftsmen.