Road & Track - Losing the Mazda Furai: A designer's reaction
09-17-13, 03:43 PM
#1
Road & Track - Losing the Mazda Furai: A designer's reaction
Losing the Mazda Furai: A designer's reaction
In an industry where gaudy supercars are released to convention halls full of jaded, cynical journalists, it's rare that a single car can captivate an audience the way that the Mazda Furai did. When it made its debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, it became a critical darling for its striking design, aggressive stance and intricate attention to detail.
The love fest was further magnified by the fact that the Furai wasn't just a concept car—it was a purebred runner. So it's no surprise that when Top Gear Magazine released a photo of the Mazda Furai concept reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes, the Internet mourned.
I was lucky enough to have been at Mazda during the Furai's time. After winning the Mazda Design Challenge in 2007, I joined the team as an intern through the spring of 2008. My project during my time there was to write and design a 100-page coffee-table book chronicling the Furai’s creation as a gift to the tireless crew that worked days and nights bringing the car to life.
So when news of its untimely demise broke last week, I wanted to get the perspective of one of its designers.
Carlos Salaff was a senior designer at Mazda and part of the team responsible for exterior design development on the Furai. I caught up with him to talk about the Furai and his reactions to the Top Gear photo. (The sketches you'll see below are by Carlos.)
One of the first things I asked was how he felt the first time he had seen the photos of the burned concept car.
He stumbled for a second, then said, "Well, I heard about the photos from you."
A knot grew in my stomach as I realized that he had never seen the photo until earlier that day. I felt like a friend having to break the news about a terrible death in the family.
"It was sad for me," he started, at first slow to put thoughts together. "I poured my heart and soul into that car. When you pour your heart and soul into something, it becomes your baby. And then I saw it destroyed like that and it really hurt. It hurt."
The Furai had seemingly disappeared over the last five years (and now we know why), but continued to captivate gearheads, designers and the public alike. It frequently makes appearances on Top Concept Car lists and has spawned Hot Wheels versions in gray, red and white. A quick search on YouTube delivers countless videos of gamers taking the car to the track in both Forza 4 and Gran Turismo 5.
Built on top of the Courage C65 Le Mans prototype chassis and powered by a 450-hp 3-rotor wankel engine, Furai was a wailing, fire-breathing beast that roared its way around Laguna Seca during a press day whose photos redefined the term "car ****."
Top Gear's photo created a very different emotion. When asked about it, Salaff replied, "I knew that it happened. We all did. But it was all just very matter-of-fact. It happened, and it was really unfortunate, but everyone just thought 'let's move on to what's next.'"
After all, concept cars get destroyed. The sad truth is that they’re usually meant to be temporary. That’s their nature. But the Furai connected with people. As news of the Furai’s demise spread, the Internet reaction was surprisingly earnest, with many commenters around the web feeling like they'd lost an icon.
"I'm amazed...there's still quite a passion for it," said Salaff, admitting he's usually hesitant to read comments online.
Since the Furai, a lot has changed for Mazda. US Director Franz von Holzhausen left in July of 2008 to take the reins as Tesla Motors’ chief designer. Ikuo Maeda took the lead as Mazda’s global head of design and retired the Nagare design language featured in the Furai. It was replaced with the current Kodo design language, first showcased on 2010's Shinari concept.
But Salaff knows that the Furai was about much more than just the design language.
"The timeless aspect and energy of the Furai—I think that will cause the industry to take a look at it again and decide what's next," he says. "It's got this hunkered-down, shrink-wrapped, cut proportion that will always be beautiful. It's great for Mazda that it's back in the conversation. It's great for the industry."
Salaff explained, "The industry is a bit stagnant, and we could use more cars like the Furai. We created something beautiful and provocative, but purposeful. It rode that fine line between beauty and in-your-face-ness. The design language doesn't matter when you can get that right."
Much of that purposefulness, he thinks, comes from the process by which they developed the car.
"How many times do you get to design something so radical and have such free reign over how you do it?" he asked. "Basically we got a racing chassis and could create any body we wanted. The guideline was 'It better be pretty damn cool.' and we just went hog wild with it."
That freedom is rare in an industry so focused on staying competitive, spending much of its time on facelifts and refreshes instead of really stepping out of the box to try something new.
While the news of last week was heartbreaking, Salaff views this experience as life-changing for him personally, and a strong indicator of where he sees the industry headed.
"I knew back then that it happened, but having been so involved in the exterior of the car, then seeing it so graphically—the charred remains, looking at ashes and thinking, 'I sculpted that line'—it was a very sad experience."
"But, working on the Furai, that process ignited a fire in me," he laughs, "No pun intended. Then seeing that Franz [von Holzhausen] went to Tesla and how far they've come. It's a really exciting time right now."
Since leaving Mazda, Salaff formed his own company and is working to create hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind cars that combine a sense of art and purpose in the same way that the Furai did.
"It was a very important car for me. Despite what happened, it pushed me to do what I'm doing now."
He hopes that the conversations surrounding the Furai will open up opportunities to create more thoughtful vehicles.
"I'm surprised by the lack of excitement and innovation in design," he says, "the fact that the Furai is being talked about is a good thing."
http://www.roadandtrack.com/features...m-its-designer
09-19-13, 07:28 AM
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12-02-13, 05:24 PM
#7
Exclusive: how the Mazda Furai died
Exclusive: how the Mazda Furai died
In early 2008, Mazda revealed its Furai concept car, a carbon-composite, race-bred masterpiece. Later that year, Top Gear magazine ran the world's only drive of the Furai. And then the car mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. Was it spirited away into some secret collection? Walled into a glass display case? Not... quite. But first, a bit of background.
Over a period of three years between 2005 and 2008, Mazda produced some stunning design concepts showcasing its ‘Nagare' design language. And although Mazda subsequently evolved Nagare into the ‘Kodo' theme in 2011 with the Shinari concept (translated into road-going metal like the CX-5 and Mazda6) the Nagare dynasty remains a glimpse into a world where Mazda designers were set free to push boundaries. There were no limits or restrictions. The Furai? Basically the poster boy of Nagare, the last and most eye-popping vehicle to be born of that philosophy. Created as a concept to show how a racecar for the road might look, it was the brainchild of a design department deeply proud of its motorsport heritage, the most extreme concept of its generation. It won global acclaim, but was more than that: the Furai was possibly the defining concept car of its era. Which makes what happens next all the more tragic.
So what did actually happen that summer?
Bentwaters Parks, 19 August 2008. 11.52am. Time for one last shot. The Mazda Furai growls threateningly on the runway. No trailer-queen concept car, this is a living, fire-breathing breath of fresh air. Under its carbon-fibre bodywork lurks an LMP2 Courage chassis and a 460bhp rotary race engine. Running pure ethanol. The Furai is very noisy. It is very fast. And right now, Top Gear is the only magazine in the world to have driven it. It will remain so.
This morning saw The Stig arrive from nowhere, drive very fast down Bentwaters' 1.3-mile runway, nod with apparent approval to writer Bill Thomas and then disappear in the direction of Great Yarmouth. Following Stig's exit, Thomas has spent the last hour firing the car up and down the tarmac under the watchful eye of the Furai support team, works driver Mark Ticehurst and the local fire crew. With the story in the bag, Bill departs to file his copy, and I'm left with photographer Lee Brimble to ensure we do justice to what surely must be one of the most stunning concept cars ever created.
As we've been shooting, I've spotted the Furai's central exhaust spitting a thin cone of blue flame on downshifts. It's this I want to capture on our last run. Ticehurst, duly instructed, heads off at pace, and Lee and I jump into the tracking vehicle and barrel after him, leaving the fire and support crews at the end of the runway. We catch the Furai over the crest of the runway (the tarmac at Bentwaters rises in the middle, something that's about to take on significance) and track it down towards the far end, Brimble snapping furiously. As Ticehurst begins to slow for the turn and drops down through the gears, things start to go wrong. The Furai is making a noise less Le Mans racer and more... fatally wounded elephant. "That doesn't sound good," mutters Lee, face pressed to camera as we track the Furai around its turn.
Then, as the Mazda straightens, Lee and I spot the same small lick of fire deep within the engine bay at the base of the bulkhead. Priceless concept. Flames. Ah.
"FIRE! OH GOD, IT'S ON FIRE!" I state calmly, resisting the urge to panic. Ticehurst, of course, can't hear me, so I bury the throttle to try to catch him and warn him of the danger. Unsurprisingly, even a wounded, smoking Furai is faster than a people carrier. It takes a few seconds or so of furious gearshifting and horn honking for us to draw alongside the now-smouldering Furai.
"MARK! FIRE! FIRE! GET THE HELL OUT! MARK, IT'S ON FIRE!" I bellow, still entirely keeping my panic under control.
Ticehurst kills the engine and jumps out before the car has even reached a halt. He starts running. He keeps running. The lick of flame has taken hold, and now the engine bay is engulfed. Where are the fire crew? I realise that, because of the natural rise in the middle of the runway, we're out of sight. As Brimble scrambles from the tracking car, I thrash towards the horizon with horn blaring and lights flashing, desperate to draw the fire crew's attention to the unfolding situation, which, though shrinking in my mirror, is clearly worsening by the second.
Eventually alerted, Suffolk's finest leap into their truck and set off towards the plume of smoke, siren and lights blaring. I turn back to the Furai, where the scene is even grimmer. Ticehurst is crouched, head in hands, 200 yards from the car, watching the fire take hold. As the ethanol burns, it's clear the game is up. With the wind blowing from directly behind the Furai (the name aptly translates as sound of wind), the fire is being fanned inexorably towards the nose of the car.
The fire crew arrive with a traffic cone wedged under their truck. Hoses out, they douse the flames, the force of the water blasting the bodywork from the Furai's carcass, revealing the bones of its substructure. One of the fire crew rips at a door to get better access to the bulkhead. Still burning, it comes off in his hand. At first, I'm annoyed at the disrespect he's showing this priceless, irreplaceable car. Then I realise that's like worrying the Titanic's deckchairs are getting damp. As the crew hose the Furai, its Mazda badge gets blasted off and onto the tarmac, where it comes to rest surrounded by charred carbon fibre.
From spotting the first flame to staring at the soggy, scorched carcass of one of history's most beautiful concept cars has taken less than eight minutes. The Furai is dead. Dead with shocking speed, savagery and finality.
Disposal of the body is swift. The remains of the Furai are gathered up and repatriated to Mazda's Advanced Design Studio in Irvine, California; where it now lies is anyone's guess.
But a piece of charred Furai still sits on my desk, a reminder of how quickly and how badly things can go wrong. I look at it daily. Understandably, Mazda didn't want the Furai's demise made public at the time, but their decision to allow us to publish this story hopefully marks the start of the next chapter in the Furai's history. If ever a concept car deserved to rise from the ashes, surely it is this one.
From delight to disaster in just eight minutes
At least the wing escaped the burn
It did work though. For a bit...
Amazing design flourishes, now lost forever
Stig behind the wheel.
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