Honda Remix - Mazda Nagare Concepts
Whether titanium-laminated, glass-bubbled, hydrogen-fueled, or cell-phone-activated, a concept car takes you behind the curtains. Concepts reveal what designers dream about — the open road, no speed limits, hip and affluent A-prime buyers — and what executives and marketers worry about — rising costs, environmental legislation, a stale image. Concepts show what's on a car company's multifaceted mind at a given moment.
At this moment, judging from these two concepts shown at the Los Angeles auto show in December, Honda and Mazda are thinking about drop-to-your-knees styling and cheap thrills. Hunkered down and bulldog blunt, the Honda Remix is a two-plus-two hatchback coupe that couldn't say "new CRX" more succinctly were it written on the hood in fuchsia lipstick.
The Mazda Nagare (pronounced nah-gar-ay) is more ambiguous, a "concept of a concept," say its creators. While talking to Mazda people, Nagare and nagare, which translates as "flow" in Japanese, are used interchangeably. Nagare is the concept car's name, whereas nagare is the term for the wind-whipped styling path the company has charted for future production vehicles. Nagare (and nagare) isn't so much a car as a compass needle.
On a Tuesday in October, we carried a notebook behind the black curtains at both Honda and Mazda and sipped for ourselves the creative juices behind two different show cars. Here's what they tasted like:
Honda R&D Americas, Torrance, California, 1:30 p.m.
"Most employees have never been on the other side of this fence," says Honda PR man Chris Martin conspiratorially as we walk off the property of American Honda Motor Company headquarters and onto the adjacent Honda R&D Americas property. Expectations of intrigue are quickly dashed. There are no guards with burp guns, just a hospital-white building with neat rows of smoked-glass windows and a lobby presided over by a lone receptionist. We are ushered into a bare conference room without getting so much as a whiff of modeling clay.
Ben Davidson is 27 and still in his first job out of college. As an advanced-concepts designer for Honda, he looks every inch the pro car artist in his high-collar denim waistcoat thingy decorated with baroque French-stitch needlework and some kind of winged-god image embroidered on the back.
The Remix started as a thumbnail sketch Davidson zipped off with drawing software in January 2006. A rear-three-quarter view, the sketch featured a boxy hatchback — a coffin tail if you will — framed by two extravagantly flared wheel arches. Imagine a Meyers Manx made into a hearse. As Davidson got going on a design of a two-seat, front-drive sporty small car, "I kept coming back to that sketch."
A snub-nosed compact sports coupe emerged, wheels pushed to the edges and a setback cockpit housing a pair of front buckets and a pair of dwarf rear seats. The nose is all geometry and beveled edges; the sharp-cut grille interlocks with the razor-blade headlights in a guise that vaguely recalls the current Honda CR-V (the emerging corporate face of Honda, perhaps?). It's all bulging muscle in the fanny, where the hatchback wraps over the rear and merges in soft radii with those huge haunches packing 20-inch wheels.
Details include a character line protruding from the side of the body that is shaped like a stretched cold-medicine capsule, an exhaust that exits down and sideways from the center of the undertray, and small video cameras standing in for side-view mirrors. The windshield carries on over the roof, splitting into two wide fans bisected by a roof vent.
For every concept, even the wild-ass ones, there must be a business case. Davidson hands over a copy of the Remix's original "concept document," a storyboard identifying the targeted buyer and the basic design elements and dimensions of the car. "The target buyer is extremely similar to myself — someone who enjoys the urban lifestyle and simple, modern design but doesn't have a lot of money."Continued..
Whether titanium-laminated, glass-bubbled, hydrogen-fueled, or cell-phone-activated, a concept car takes you behind the curtains. Concepts reveal what designers dream about — the open road, no speed limits, hip and affluent A-prime buyers — and what executives and marketers worry about — rising costs, environmental legislation, a stale image. Concepts show what's on a car company's multifaceted mind at a given moment.
At this moment, judging from these two concepts shown at the Los Angeles auto show in December, Honda and Mazda are thinking about drop-to-your-knees styling and cheap thrills. Hunkered down and bulldog blunt, the Honda Remix is a two-plus-two hatchback coupe that couldn't say "new CRX" more succinctly were it written on the hood in fuchsia lipstick.
The Mazda Nagare (pronounced nah-gar-ay) is more ambiguous, a "concept of a concept," say its creators. While talking to Mazda people, Nagare and nagare, which translates as "flow" in Japanese, are used interchangeably. Nagare is the concept car's name, whereas nagare is the term for the wind-whipped styling path the company has charted for future production vehicles. Nagare (and nagare) isn't so much a car as a compass needle.
On a Tuesday in October, we carried a notebook behind the black curtains at both Honda and Mazda and sipped for ourselves the creative juices behind two different show cars. Here's what they tasted like:
Honda R&D Americas, Torrance, California, 1:30 p.m.
"Most employees have never been on the other side of this fence," says Honda PR man Chris Martin conspiratorially as we walk off the property of American Honda Motor Company headquarters and onto the adjacent Honda R&D Americas property. Expectations of intrigue are quickly dashed. There are no guards with burp guns, just a hospital-white building with neat rows of smoked-glass windows and a lobby presided over by a lone receptionist. We are ushered into a bare conference room without getting so much as a whiff of modeling clay.
Ben Davidson is 27 and still in his first job out of college. As an advanced-concepts designer for Honda, he looks every inch the pro car artist in his high-collar denim waistcoat thingy decorated with baroque French-stitch needlework and some kind of winged-god image embroidered on the back.
The Remix started as a thumbnail sketch Davidson zipped off with drawing software in January 2006. A rear-three-quarter view, the sketch featured a boxy hatchback — a coffin tail if you will — framed by two extravagantly flared wheel arches. Imagine a Meyers Manx made into a hearse. As Davidson got going on a design of a two-seat, front-drive sporty small car, "I kept coming back to that sketch."
A snub-nosed compact sports coupe emerged, wheels pushed to the edges and a setback cockpit housing a pair of front buckets and a pair of dwarf rear seats. The nose is all geometry and beveled edges; the sharp-cut grille interlocks with the razor-blade headlights in a guise that vaguely recalls the current Honda CR-V (the emerging corporate face of Honda, perhaps?). It's all bulging muscle in the fanny, where the hatchback wraps over the rear and merges in soft radii with those huge haunches packing 20-inch wheels.
Details include a character line protruding from the side of the body that is shaped like a stretched cold-medicine capsule, an exhaust that exits down and sideways from the center of the undertray, and small video cameras standing in for side-view mirrors. The windshield carries on over the roof, splitting into two wide fans bisected by a roof vent.
For every concept, even the wild-ass ones, there must be a business case. Davidson hands over a copy of the Remix's original "concept document," a storyboard identifying the targeted buyer and the basic design elements and dimensions of the car. "The target buyer is extremely similar to myself — someone who enjoys the urban lifestyle and simple, modern design but doesn't have a lot of money."Continued..
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