Press Release
Exterior Design
The Compact Crossover Coupe with Roadster Feel
In Japanese, the word Hakaze (pronounced Hah-kah-zay) comes from “ha” for “leaf” and “kaze” which means “wind,” a fitting combination for a vehicle that looks like it is effortlessly cutting through the air while standing still. Mazda Hakaze has very compact proportions. At 4,420 mm, it is roughly the same length (+15 mm) as the Mazda3 hatchback – which ensures agile, sporty handling – but is wider (1,890 mm, + 135 mm), and taller (1,560 mm, + 95 mm) with a high seating position, a very large glass area and large suspension travel –all attributes usually associated with a C-segment SUV.
This insightful package is clothed in a modernistic body work with no door handles and no mirrors – exterior cameras replace these –very compact proportions and flowing major feature lines and side textures that create a muscular and taught look. Mazda Hakaze has no B-pillar either and the rear two-thirds of the glass roof can be taken off in two parts and stored in a slide-out compartment in the rear bumper. Lowering the car’s four frameless windows then converts the concept into a fun to drive, four-seat coupe with roadster feel.
Mazda Hakaze’s exterior design was a cooperative effort from the same successful duo that designed the Mazda Sassou, presented at the 2005 Frankfurt Motor Show: Mickael Loyer, whose design was selected this time for the final proposal, assisted by Luca Zollino.”The design team took inspiration from sports and outdoor activities in the wind or in the water giving the sensation of being free and allows us to break boundaries,” says Mickael Loyer,”like kite-surfing, flying, diving, driving a jet-ski or a motorbike. We were looking for shapes moulded by natural elements, and how the wind shapes the sand is a key element in the exterior design of this concept.”
At the front, they pushed forward the design idea of the Mazda Sassou –with a large grille design that has chevron-shaped front indicators and headlights –to which they added Nagare flow lines. At the rear of the car, a unique illumination system is used with light flowing directly into the lower part of the rear window. Because the rear lights have flowing shapes integrated into the design here, this creates an impression of floating light. Mazda Hakaze’s silhouette features Nagare flow lines at the front of the door panel, with a visual link to the front of the car created by a line falling over the top of the front wheel well and into the side panel. These are combined with a rising beltline extended into the hatchback door, a steeply angled windshield similar to Mazda’s crossover SUV CX-7 and a roof line that gives Hakaze a modern body shape that integrates the strong look of a Samurai sword when seen from the side.
All the concept’s Nagare flow lines combine to visualize movement by making it seem as if the wind itself has etched natural flow lines into the car´s surface. Even when parked, Mazda Hakaze looks as if it is moving –as if wind is blowing over the front wheel wells, down and along the side panels and across the bottom of the rear window.
Mazda Hakaze not only took its inspiration from Nagare natural flow, but also from technological objects like helicopters, speed boats, jetfighters. These are strongly related to flow and examples of human interface to fast movement through natural elements. The design team combined these kinds of forms with shapes directly moulded by flow in sand and water. Examples of this are Hakaze’s glass roof cockpit and its 20-inch wheel design. The wheels use a mixture of forms inspired by sand dunes and propeller shapes to express flow and movement –including extensions of the spoke design into the tyre rubber bordering the wheel –and adds a three-dimensional depth to lend Mazda’s new show car a modern sophistication.
“The Hakaze is an agile yet tough coupe that takes you wherever you want to go,”says Luca Zollino. “Its design is also unique because of the unconventional shape of its hatch. The continuity of the beltline through the hatch allows us to close all the volumes above it: this together with a very angled and long windscreen enhances the compactness of its proportions.”
Exterior Colour and Materials – Nagare Surface Treatment enhanced by “flop” technique
Mazda Hakaze’s exterior forms are combined with colours, materials and surface treatment that also express Nagare flow. A desert image is the source for its golden colour, reminiscent of a desert at sunset.
“The exterior colour was selected to support the surface language, its articulation and its texture,” says Maria Greger, Senior Designer for Colour and Materials,”so that the whole surface impression is one of natural flow. We want to have a feeling of sand. So if you look closer at the colour, you see small particles like sand.”
The natural look to the exterior surface was further underscored by employing a”flop”technique in the colour treatment of all panels that are bent at an angle to form two sections with a smooth edge between them. The paint used for such panels was designed to give the upper part of the panel a more transparent feel, which is created by a transparent layer over the colour. Then the colour”flops”over towards a darker impression below the edge, an effect achieved by additives to the paint and by a slightly different use of particles in the paint. The final effect is similar to a sand dune or a wave in sand, which is lighter above and darker below.
