Mazda Hakaze Concept: Yet Another Crossover SUV

Motoring Channel Staff - 9/Feb/2007

Frankfurt, Germany — It's called the Hakaze design concept and it's made for kite surfers. No more snowboarders, surfers, or downhill mountain bikers. Kite surfing is the extreme sport du jour for Mazda, embodied in its new concept called the Hakaze.

A four-seat coupe-style compact crossover SUV designed at Mazda's European Design Centre near Frankfurt in Germany, the Hakaze is aimed at people in their thirties and forties who lead active, adventurous lifestyles according to the Japanese automaker.

The Hakaze concept is the third design concept of the series created around the ‘Nagare’ design language, joining the Mazda Nagare and Mazda Ryuga which were revealed late in 2006 and early 2007. 

The Mazda Hakaze concept showcases the Japanese company's new design language called Nagare, (pronounced na-ga-reh) developed by Mazda’s new global design director, Laurens van den Acker. The word Nagare means "flow" and applying it to car design involved analysing motion itself and how forces like wind and water move in nature.

According to Mazda, kite-surfers are "wind chasers" who get up at the crack of dawn, switch on their computer and search for the right wind conditions on the Internet for the best place to surf, grab their gear and go. And here is where the Mazda Hakaze meets the needs of such a lifestyle in several ways. For example, part of Hakaze’s centre tunnel in the boot slides rearwards and out of the car, to which a kite-surfboard can be attached, slid back in and transported, and there's even an Internet connection on the integrated LCD screen in front of the front passenger to check the whether reports. 

Mazda even foresees drivers making their own movies and recording the directions to undiscovered beaches via a small digital camera mounted in the LCD screen, which can be rotated to film the road or the people in the car.

Using well-heeled kite-surfers as its target demographic, Mazda is bringing the Nagare design theme to Europe with this season's third all-new concept car, the Mazda Hakaze, which was designed at Mazda’s European Design Centre (near Frankfurt, Germany). 

The Mazda Hakaze is a compact crossover coupe with a roadster feel, says the company. It combines the best attributes of three traditional types of cars: part of its roof is removable, which gives a feel similar to a roadster; it is agile and fun to drive like a compact hatchback, and it has a high hip point and interior functionality like a compact SUV.

"Nagare is expressed in the Mazda Hakaze, not only in the iteration on the side of the car, but also in a lot of the details," says Peter Birtwhistle, the head designer for Mazda Motor Europe.

"If you look at things like the execution of the wheel design, the spokes have a nice flow in terms of the way they move, the way the surfaces move, the way they integrate into the tyre design. The interior too. The basic form of the interior is like looking at sand dunes. It’s got all this movement, winds blowing. I find that inspirational in terms of trying to find a new way of expressing design. Of course, you have to think about functionality. But Mazda is all about emotion. And this is emotion," added the enthusiastic Peter Birtwhistle.

Mazda explains the Hakaze has very compact proportions, with similar length to the Mazda3 hatchback at 4,420 mm. The insightful package is clothed in a modernistic body work with no door handles and no mirrors – exterior cameras replace these – very compact proportions and flowing major feature lines and side textures that create a muscular and taught look. 

The Hakaze concept has no B-pillar either and the rear two-thirds of the glass roof can be taken off in two parts and stored in a slide-out compartment in the rear bumper.

Power for the concept car comes from either a direct injection petrol engine or a diesel engine. The MZR 2.3-litre DISI petrol is a high-performance turbocharged engine with direct injection that is coupled to Mazda's active torque-split all-wheel drive transmission, and it delivers high torque and power with a 6-speed sport automatic transmission and beach-ready four-wheel drive traction.

Combined with Mazda Hakaze’s aerodynamic shape and lightweight body, the engine would not only be fun to drive, but would also use acceptable amounts of petrol. It has MacPherson front struts and multi-link rear suspension for agile, Zoom-Zoom handling, whether at the beach or in the city.

Inside the new concept design, there are two large, touch-operated pop-up doors (keyless, of course), and give a wide opening into one of its four bucket seats. Once inside, the Hakaze's interior gives an intense open feeling, even with the roof on. The windscreen extends to behind the front occupants, creating an enormous viewing angle.

The interior also features a modern data transferral system which Mazda says is a further development of the USB stick concept used on the Mazda Sassou design car. It is a wireless device that allows the driver to open the car simply by carrying it in his pocket, and also allows him to save his personal driving settings and data from his home computer (route, music, movies). Once in place, the "data shell" device also functions as the gear shift lever for the concept’s automatic gearbox.

All of the Hakaze concept's seats are mounted on the centre tunnel and are electrically adjustable, sliding fore and aft, in another concept feature that may make its way into future Mazda SUV designs. For more room in the boot, the rear seats slide forward with their lower cushions under the front seats, which give ample space in the hatch for all kinds of gear necessary for a day at the beach.

The colour scheme on the inside of Mazda Hakaze was chosen to enhance the natural flow forms and to underscore the car’s kite-surfing functionality. They reflect the ocean, continuing the beach and dune theme, with the floor a dark brown, the trim, dashboard, doors and centre panel a greenish beige, the four seats in a deep blue. This is combined with unique texturing of materials meant to enhance the Nagare flow strategy with natural feeling surfaces and patterns.

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- Mazda Ryuga (concept)
- Mazda Nagare (concept)
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- Mazda6 Diesel (2007)