Michael Roller

Drew Smith Responds to my Mazda 3 Love

A few weeks ago, I professed my love for the new Mazda 3 production, saying it was a great translation of the Nagare theme that Mazda has been using to impress car show attendees. To get a better perspective on the subject, I asked transportation design strategist Drew Smith for his thoughts on the subject. His comment was so thoughtful that I thought it deserved it’s own post. Here it is:

For me this car is a physical embodiment of the massive challenges that automotive designers face when translating a conceptual design language into something that can be produced to a (low) cost.

The whole Nagare series of cars was predicated on the development of a premium – read more expensive to produce – surface and form language that was designed to shift Mazda upmarket. A succesful, authentic production implementation was always going to rely on high levels of attention to detail and manufacturing skill.

With that in mind, I’m not sure that this implementation of the Nagare achieves those goals. Where the concept cars almost universally reminded me of the unbroken surface of a fast-flowing stream (carrying with it connotations of Japanese natural beauty etc.), the implementation on this vehicle is somewhat less high-minded and a lot of it comes down to the way cars are made.

If you separate front, middle and back of the car there are three different games being played.

At the front, it’s clear that they’re trying to cram in as much Nagare-ness as they can to get the facial recognition synapses firing in the prospective buyer. The front clip is actually the cheapest place to play with lots of form and depth, so it’s really no wonder they went to town with it. The fact that it comes across as pretty overdone, however, runs completely counter to the underlying theme of the Nagare – flow – language.

The side surfaces of the car are far more successful in communicating the intent of the language, with the crease in the lower door being particularly nice to let the eye linger on. Funnily enough, these are the most expensive surface to do well, and although they lack much of the magic of the show cars, they’re still nicely resolved.

The rear of the car is probably the biggest disappointment as it doesn’t really speak of anything intrinsically Mazda or Nagare and is an uncomfortable amalgam of many other cars. This isn’t a problem unique to Mazda, however.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my first run-in with the new Mazda 3. I thought it was a great translation of the Nagare design theme that Mazda has been using. To get a better perspective, I asked transporation design strategist Drew Smith for his thoughts on the subject:

They’re far from alone in letting the back of the car get away from them, as evidenced by the new Mercedes E-Class, a car that has almost no rear-end identity.

The front lamps, as you point out, do have some lovely detailing in them that support the theme, but a look at the rears shows none of the same deftness of touch. Similarly, the grille insert pattern is a nice little detail that is let down by the discordant crossbar and number plate placement.

At the end of all this, I come back to my opening statement. The car is representative of the massive challenges we face and the compromises that must be made to make something at a cost that the market can take. If Mazda hadn’t spent so many concepts teasing us with stunningly resolved surfaces, details and proportions, this car would not disappoint me nearly so much, as truth be told, it IS a good piece of production work.

The problem was that, as an industry tragic (and please, dear Strategic Aesthetics reader, remember that that is what I am. I am not a normal person ), my expectations had been set much higher.

If I put my consumer hat on, I think you might have nailed it Michael. At the end of the day, Mazda is still (despite all their work to the contrary) as mainstream producer selling cars to mainstream consumers. And on that front, I think that the 3 provides a startling new face that deserves to do well in the market place.

I’m still holding out hope for a Mazda that really does justice to all their hard work, however. A new, electric RX-7 based on the Taiki would do nicely!

Thanks again, Drew!

Tags: interviews, strategic aesthetics, transportation

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