Mazda CX-60 design review: ‘not the design showpiece it should be’

Everything Mazda design does is inspired by Japanese culture. Inspiration taken from local art, product design, sculpture and even gardens. But what went wrong with the latest big Mazda?

Mazda has christened its design language Kodo. The word roughly translates to ‘Soul of Motion’. This philosophy was brought to Mazda by Design Chief Ikuo Maeda and introduced in 2010. Kodo was first seen on the Mazda CX-5. The current generation of Mazdas are designed, viewed and judged through these Japanese Kodo glasses. Shapes, colors and materials are selected and applied accordingly. Kodo is a perfect key for Mazda. Consciously or unconsciously, customers buy a piece of the manufacturer’s culture: whoever buys a Mazda buys a piece of Japan. Kodo makes this extremely visual.

Mazda has great clay modellers

An important starting point for the creative design process at Mazda is the great clay modellers. A starting point, because at Mazda clay is used completely differently than at other car brands. Clay modellers are a unique part of the creative process as the modellers inspire the car designers with sculptures during the early sketching phase. These free forms feed the design process, instead of the clay modellers ‘only’ carrying out the sketch work of the designers in clay.

CX-5 greatly benefited: good surfacing

The design of the CX-5 has greatly benefited from this method: resulting in a unique, distinctive design language for the skin in particular, the so-called surfacing. The CX-5 was the first car where Mazda designers took the unusual path from inspirational sculpture in clay to sketch made on paper. This sketch vision was subsequently translated by the clay modellers into a car sculpture. The unique clay-based design methodology is evident in the design of the current Mazda line-up. The CX-30 and the Mazda 3 in particular are exceptionally strong sculptures and therefore unmistakably Mazda designs.

A camera close to the nose can lead to optical distortion, which can already be well established in the clay phase of a design.

Why clay is so important in the design process

Clay modellers, at every car manufacturer, help the car designers create their own sketch design – and the proportions, surfacing and brightwork of it – to better understand. A car is different in every perspective. Think of a TopGear film recording where the front of a car is sometimes filmed with a fish-eye lens and sometimes from afar. The nose of the car visually deforms. The human eye has a similar effect on the design of a car and the nature of the deformation can only be determined in the clay phase of the car design process. In clay, subtle differences, variations and interpretations of a sketch can be effectively expressed to, among other things, absorb that distortion.

Kodo is characterized by a lot of sculpture

The Kodo design language is characterized by a lot of sculpture, depth, in the nose around the grille and headlights, in the so-called Down The Road Graphic. And Kodo is also beautifully reflected in the strong highlights and shadows in the flanks. The flanks in particular are noteworthy with their special, twisting diagonal: slender, well-trained muscle tone without a single gram of fat.

The Mazda CX-60 doesn’t have as much of a Kodo effect on the flanks as the 3 and CX-30.

The Mazda 3 and the CX-30 are confident without being bold by Kodo. They are unprecedented examples of automotive design in an everyday sector. These can only be Japanese cars. The proportional statement, the way the surfaces rotate and the materials used in the interior are collectively strong: formidable work.

The somewhat languid look of the Mazda CX-60.

CX-60 looks a bit languid

But then, the CX-60. This new car is Mazda’s flagship. The big top SUV for the Japanese that – normally – should be the design showpiece. Unfortunately, the CX-60 is extremely stiff, especially when compared to the CX-5, CX-30 and Mazda 3. That the nose with Down The Road Graphic is more formal than on the smaller, more dynamic models is a logical consequence of this car typology , but the nose also lacks sculpture and energy. The CX-60 looks a bit languid, lifeless. The design also has flat body sections compared to both competitors and the aforementioned models from its own portfolio. And that while there is literally and figuratively more room for creativity in the development of a larger car: more physical freedom of movement for an unmistakable design language and more budget to produce more complex contours. So there is absolutely no excuse for the weak surfacing around.

The skin can hardly be recognized as Kodo and the skin so characteristic of other Mazdas boneline isn’t there either. On the CX-60 it looks soft, creamy and heavy – almost Mercedes-Benz like. And that is not a compliment given the strong own DNA. The rounded shoulder and the details, such as the element on the mudguard, are equally saltless.

The CX-60 as a whole comes across as an exceptionally eroded variant of the fire dna that has been so flawlessly executed so far and is therefore not the inspiring Kodo topper that the hefty SUV in this segment should be. The aspiration for all Mazda drivers remains the Mazda 3.