Most designers have gotten inspiration for their work from nature. Some works are inspired by animals while some are inspired by endless greenery. Some even get inspiration just by watching the rising and setting of the sun. The designers of Mazda are no exception to this. The only difference is that they were inspired to base their design on something that could not be appreciated by the naked eye: air. Their aim when coming up with a design for the Mazda Taiki sports car was to capture the motion of flowing air. And based on the outcome of the design, it seems they were successful in doing just that.

At a glance, the first thing that the designers did in order to capture the effect of air is to create lines that give of the illusion of flowing air. They were able to do that by imprinting swooping lines in the car’s front grille. The designers were also able to incorporate the same design in the vehicle’s wheels. In order to ensure that the car not only looks like its flowing on air, but runs like it, they’ve installed their next generation rotary engine called the Renesis 2. The engine features a two-rotor design that has an increased displacement from 1.3 liters to 1.6 liters giving the car more stroke and torque. Combined with direct injection, the Taiki is also able to save up on fuel consumption. In addition, the people at Mazda installed a double wishbone suspension and a dry twin clutch 7-speed power shift to enhance the driving experience.

Aside from establishing the flowing design of air for its car’s exterior, Mazda’s designers also made sure that the car’s interiors provided a relaxing and spacious atmosphere by keeping the capacity of the car set to fit two people only. The driver seat comes with a seatback and headrest while the passenger seat is patterned after a lounge chair which will enable the passenger to stretch their legs during the trip.

This design concept is something that Mazda is hoping to apply to the overall design of their sports cars in the near future.

Sources: myride.com, autoblog.com, worldcarfans.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.