Fri, 29 Aug '08 - Mazda Museum

Local train to a rather weather beaten Mukainada station. The walk to Mazda is less than five mins from here. We have reserved us places on the English tour from 1pm (booking is essential). We arrive 30 mins early and hangout in the HQ lobby where they have a small display of current models. So far so automotive generic. Bright lights shiny cars, smiley front of house. The English tour bus is a Mazda design from over 20 years ago with hard seats and powerful aircon. As we wave through the factory complex our guide gives us some facts.

This is one of two Mazda facilities in and around Hiroshima. It occupies an entire peninsula of land. They built their own bridge spanning to an ajoining peninsula, and as mentioned elsewhere they have their own container port and power plant. The factory has it’s own college, countless private roads, five fire stations and lots and lots of neatly pruned hedges. The scale of the factory is impressive. It’s clearly very well managed. Our tour runs to the minute (even though we misunderstand the rules re photography and have to get driven back to reception to get our camera gear). It feels like a private kingdom. This is big business.

Four Nagare concept vehicles (Hakaze, Taiki, Ryuga, Nagare, from left to right in the image above) dominate reception to the museum. I am rendered speechless by their beauty. They are photogenic designs but no amount of pro photography can prepare you for a real life encounter. No wonder these models have won so many awards. If I could go out and buy a Nagare now I would. Can Mazda translate this brilliance into the production models? Surely they would be hugely successful. They simply have the ‘wow, want one’ factor.

The more I look at them the more I see. The detailing of the designs is exquisite. The shut lines are perfect and emphasise the sculptural flowing quality of the panels. The glazing is spectacular with large expanses of dark glass formed to curve in three directions at once. The cars are inscribed in places with grooves that successfully suggest speed even when stationary. The metallic paint is luminous. The wheels suggest rotors. External illumination is camouflaged behind opaque body parts, or forms part of the flow graphics such as the Taiki’s LED headlamp ribbons or the Nagare’s claw/sunburst rear lights. It all looks incredibly expensive to produce.

The general proportions of the Nagare and Taiki standout most of all. These two have a particular rightness in form and proportion. The new Nagare surface language is rich and fluently spoken here. It is unlike anything else currently out there. Explicitly referencing Japanese forms and undoubtedly futuristic, but not so strange as to alienate. These designs

 make one thing of universally understood sensations and concepts such as Speed and the feel of the wind across your skin.

The supporting display gives the top line on the Nagare rational and the story for each model. Photography accompanying the words emphasises the crafting of the designs. The copy is full of hybrid Japanese and western characters. There’s something interesting going on here and as we suspected the language barrier is actually quite weak if the typography is set well.Mazda does not shout as loudly as it could about he brilliance of it’s back catalogue. Some of the cars obviously ape N. American and European designs, but even these have an exoticism that is attractive… similar but different. The big sports cars and coupes are especially attractive designs.

The earliest Mazda I recognise seems to have been born with the 80s N.American market in mind.Other exhibits about the design, and basic manufacture of vehicles could be applied to almost any car manufacturer. Along the way there are innovations that are not headlined as boldly as they could be. The reintroduction of suicide doors on the RX-8, the development of paint that can have a second coat applied even when wet… It becomes clear that Mazda is a genuinely inventive company and has been so for years.

The rotary engine section is a useful example showing how a technology originally conceived in the west (Germany) has been perfected in the east…. We see an early Mazda interpretation of the Wankel rotary engine and the subsequent generations of enhancement conducted by Mazda, going as far as the prototype Hydrogen Renesis. The basic rotary design can be easily altered for hydrogen fuel. Most of the parts are the same as the petrol version.

Thoughts

Nagare is the real deal. It's amazing, world beating. The real thing. Mazda is a genuinely innovative car manufacturer. There are loads of great stories (both historic and current) that prove this commitment to innovation. Mazda could make more of this.