Mazda Shinari Concept and Sky Engines

Mazda global design boss Ikuo Maeda's nickname is "Speedy." Though he earned the moniker on the racetrack as a keen amateur racer, Maeda is also quick in the design studio. Since succeeding Dutchman Laurens van den Acker in April 2009, Speedy Maeda has masterminded a complete rethink of Mazda's design direction.
Shinari, the concept car revealed in Milan on Monday, introduces Maeda's new Kodo look. But you already knew that. Despite Mazda's attempt to enforce a Friday publication embargo, photographs and information (some of it inaccurate) hit the Internet only hours after the car was revealed to the first of several groups of international media scheduled to see it through the course of this week. (This media-only event is possibly the car's only appearance; Mazda will not display it at Paris show in late September and may never exhibit it as a motor show).
Mazda Shinari Concept Left Side
Although the leak blew the Mazda public relations department's carefully laid plans to smithereens, it also demonstrated that the world is plenty curious about the new look developed by the company's design team under Maeda's leadership.
A long, low, five-door hatchback, Shinari signals Maeda's intention to create a generation of faster-looking, harder-edged Mazdas. Where the Nagare design theme developed during van den Acker's time emphasised "Nature Flow," the catchphrase for Maeda's Kodo direction is "Soul in Motion." "Kodo is all about bringing form to life," according to Maeda.
Shinari is also a much more realistic concept than the series of sometimes downright weird Nagare show cars. Its four-seat interior is beautifully detailed (although nothing much beside the starter button, steering and brakes actually works), and the exterior isn't too far-fetched (it lacks windscreen wipers and neither hood nor hatch is openable).
Mazda Shinari Concept Rear Three Quarter 2
That exterior is the work of a young Korean designer, Yong Wook Cho, who worked at Hyundai-Kia before moving to Mazda's Japanese studios in 2003, and won an internal competition to style the exterior of the concept that would define Kodo. Mazda's North American design team in Irvine, California, contributed the Shinari's interior, with its arcing, layered driver cockpit and spacious passenger accommodations. And there was also input from the multi-national team working under Englishman Peter Birtwhistle at Mazda's European studios in Frankfurt, Germany.