Design

Master Craftsmen Bring the All-New Mazda3 to Life

Mazda is a company of craftsmen. Its designers shape beautiful forms that embody their own spirit, breathing life into the cars they create. True masters of their craft, Mazda designers spend their lives dedicated to enhancing the forms of their vehicles with a beauty that can only be captured by human hands.

The striking beauty and refined elegance of the all-new Mazda3 is a direct result of the painstaking dedication and efforts of Mazda’s designers. It is one thing to produce a singular piece of art, but it takes an intense mastery of skills to bring the precision of beautiful design to mass production.

Mazda 3 hatchback and sedan AWD bose speakers

CREATING LIFE THROUGH COLOR & FORM

As the all-new Mazda3 moves and the scenery changes, the light dancing across its surfaces give it a feeling of life. To get the reflections just right, Mazda designers spent two years and a lot of clay to develop the body surfaces. In fact, Mazda uses more clay for modeling than any other car company because the forms it develops go beyond the capabilities of digital modeling.

“Following our KODO design principles, our designers sketch on paper and carve clay with their own two hands,” said Masahiro Moro, president and CEO, Mazda North American Operations. “Even in the factory, we finish each stamping die-cast by hand, faithful to the original craftsmen. These are just a few examples that demonstrate our deep belief that the care, precision and passion behind human touch elevate our cars to art.”

To achieve the highest quality of luster and shine on the vehicles, Mazda studied the way its master craftsmen apply paint to a vehicle. Their inputs, captured by 3D sensors, were programed into the robotic paint sprayers to replicate the same humanistic and meticulous hand movements, adding a human touch to the vehicles.

“Mazda is the only car company putting in this level of extensive energy to inject human feeling and emotion into a mass market vehicle,” said Julien Montousse, senior director, Mazda Design Americas. “It’s a remarkable feat that only codifies our commitment to the art of craftsmanship.”