RX8Club.com - WHEELS Talks with Mazda Design Guru

WHEELS (May 2006) Magazine Interview with Mazda Design Executive Officer…

IF THE SUCCESS OF DESIGN IS MEASURED IN SALES, THEN MORAY CALLUM IS A SUPERSTAR…..

OTHER car makers are shutting down factories and laying off workers, as they seek a balance between supply and demand.
Mazda, too, has supply and demand problems. With some of its most popular models, like the 3, the factories struggle to build enough cars. The fast-talking Scottish designer joined Mazda in September 2001, and in the five years since then, Mazda’s sales have soared (see figures). Much credit belongs to Callum, who last year was promoted from general manager to executive officer rank in recognition of his work.

When he recently visited Australia for the first time, we met to find out how Callum plans to maintain Mazda’s design momentum….

What do Mazda’s recent trio of show cars, displayed at the 2005 Frankfurt and Tokyo shows, and the 2006 Detroit show, tell us about where the company is headed?

“An investment for a show car is a lot less than an investment for a production car, so you can experiment a little bit with design language. If you look at the Sassou, the Kabura and the Senku, there are actually three different languages going on there. In a couple of these cars there are certainly very strong hints for the future, in terms of surface language and where we’re going to go.
“You’ve seen on all three of those there’s a different variation on how we can handle the five point grille, for example. The Senku, being that far out, it’s not going to give you a really strong hint of where we’re going tomorrow, but I think the other two (Kabura, Sassou) are a good indication of what we’re looking at internally, and what we want to do with the face of the car.”

Are you daunted by the task of redesigning a hugely successful line-up?

“It’s a big challenge because obviously, internally, we’re now looking at the next range. The internal discussion we’ve had now is not so much should we change direction – we don’t want to change direction – but how much of a leap we need to make as we move from that stage.”

And how much change is just right?

“Crocodiles evolve at a different rate than PC’s, you know. So there’s a different rate of evolution. I think there’s also an expectancy from a Japanese brand to evolve probably quicker than a European brand. I’m trying to slow it down to the stage where people still recognise it. You don’t want it to be such a step that people can’t see the link anymore.
“You want to be able to put up a current Mazda 6 besides the next Mazda 6 and identify them both as Mazda 6’s, but obviously say that the next one is light years ahead. It’s a bit of a juggling act, because you can jump too far and designers might see the link, but when you need to point the link out it’s not going to work for the customer. We know where we’re going in that sense.”

Will technical advances play a great role in shaping the next Mazda generation?

“Exterior wise, we’re still going to be limited to steel or aluminium, and plastics, in terms of materials.
In some ways we’re developing, I would say, a little more advanced ways of shaping them. So you might get slightly more sculpture to sheet metal, for example.
Lamps, that’s really one area where we’re looking at completely changing, a real paradigm shift in terms of shape, size, everything else.”

At Mazda, design and engineering appear to work very harmoniously.
Is this really the case?

“Our job is to communicate what the car will deliver. We need to make a car that looks like it’s going to handle nicely and drive nicely, and if it doesn’t deliver that, then we’re cheating the public.
Engineering needs to be on the same track as design,. Marketing, as well.
I think that’s where Mazda has done a very good job.”

What are the chances like the Kabura making it into production?
How many niche models, like the RX-8, can Mazda do?

“That’s where I have to hand over to the business guys. The first question, we ask the marketing guys “Can you sell it?” The next question, “How much for? Then it’s the case, if that sounds good, ‘Okay, you’re going to sell it, but is it going to eat up any other of our other cars?’ And then it’s, ‘Is that going to be a better profit than something else we might be able to do, and can the plants do it?’
There’s a lot of business decisions, and for the right reasons.”

Why do you think the company has such an appeal to Australians?

“ I think it is honesty of the brand. I think Australians are enthusiastic about cars and I think Mazda is an enthusiast’s car brand in a lot of ways.
People like that about us.
“People recognise that the RX-8 is probably not the most logical business decision to make, but at least we go up and we do it. There’s a lot of passion in the company.”
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MAZDA’S GROWTH SPURT

2001…657,241 (27,226 Australia)
2002…716,497 (32,832)
2003…733,295 (46,526)
2004…758,269 (48,440)
2005…806,064 (59,446)

From 2001 to 2005, global demand for Mazda cars has increased 23 percent, which looks impressive enough until compared with the astonishing 118 percent leap in the brand’s Australian passenger vehicle sales over the same five-year period.
Moray Callum isn’t the only man at Mazda who deserves credit.
When he joined the company, transferring to Hiroshima from a senior design posting with Ford at Detroit, the design of the Mazda 6 was a done deal. This was the model that marked the beginning of Mazda’s renaissance, and by March this year the 6 had raced to a million sales quicker than any previous model the company had ever made.
With each new model after the Mazda 6 – the 2, 3, RX-8 and MX-5 – his influence was greater.

CALLUM’S CARS – THE NEXT GENERATION..
Here is the order in which Mazda’s new model wave will reach Australia…
Some are additions, others will replace existing models..

Mazda CX-7…New Addition
Mazda 2…Replacement
Mazda CX-9….Addition ???
Mazda 6 … Replacement
Mazda 3… Replacement
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Mazda Kabura, Shown in Detroit 2006, designed in California.
Mazda Sassou, Shown in Frankfurt 2006, designed in Frankfurt.
Mazda Senku, Shown Tokyo 2006, designed in Yokohama.
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Small Image inserts of the cars mentioned were part of the 2 page ‘WHEELS’ interview, however, No new images on the New or Replacement models were shown, so I wont copy/post them, we have all seen them before, or you can do a “search” in the RX-8 Forums.