Love Mazda's Soul Red Paint? So Do Mazda's Designers

In Mazda’s hometown of Hiroshima, Japan, there are artists whose families have been making traditional Japanese lacquer work for generations. Lacquer is an artistic process that starts with the resin of the native urushi tree which is then ground and mixed with pigments to create a bold, smooth coating that can be applied to wood, or spread over a paper form to create a light, strong, and very beautiful finish on furniture or housewares. It’s a time-consuming art. A single lacquer bowl can require more than 100 layers and take more than four months to complete. The result is unlike any other paint process. It’s glossy and deep, with colors like a sunset or a butterfly’s wing.Car and DriverYou won’t find any lacquer artists in the paint department at Mazda, but there is no doubt that Keiichi Okamoto, head of the design center, finds inspiration in that traditional Japanese craft. If you’ve ever walked past a ruby-red CX-50 in a parking lot or caught a glimpse of a bright gem of a Miata on the highway, you have Okamoto and his team to thank for that eye-catching color. To make a red so vibrant, Mazda’s paint team had to develop a whole new paint process. Takuminuri translates in English as “artisan coloring,” and it refers to four of Mazda’s most dramatic colors: Soul Red Crystal, Machine Gray, Rhodium White Premium, and Artisan Red Premium. What makes these colors different from standard metallic finishes is the size of the metallic particles and the way the paint is applied. Where normal metallic paints use larger flakes and only a few layers, a Takuminuri color uses much smaller flake and a translucent color layer before the clear coat. This is a similar technique to the “kandy coat” colors of custom cars in the 1960s, where a layer of metalflake or pearl was sprayed over by a transparent color. Unlike those early candies, which were notorious for becoming blotchy if not applied perfectly by a skilled hand, Mazda has managed to program its factory robots to lay down thin, even coats of each layer to maximize the shine and avoid any imperfections. MazdaMazda’s Artisan Red Premium.To achieve the sheen without the glitter of metallic, the actual flakes in the first layer of paint are a mere 12 to 15 microns thick, barely bigger than what the human eye can see. The layer contains both metallic and light-absorbing particles, which mimics the effect of a flake sprayed over a dark base coat—a trick for creating depth under the eventual candy top coat. For inspiration, Okamoto looked at gemstones, freshly machined metal, red wines, and, we’d guess, at local lacquerware. The result is shades that highlight the shape of the cars in unbroken lines and with an underlying glow. It’s the perfect match for Mazda’s unfussy, simple design language, much like a lacquer sake cup in a traditional black and red finish. Like a sleeper agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn’t know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to be a vet-astronaut-artist, and came closest to that last one by attending UCLA art school. She painted images of cars, but did not own one. Elana reluctantly got a driver’s license at age 21 and discovered that she not only loved cars and wanted to drive them, but that other people loved cars and wanted to read about them, which meant somebody had to write about them. Since receiving activation codes, Elana has written for numerous car magazines and websites, covering classics, car culture, technology, motorsports, and new-car reviews. In 2020, she received a Best Feature award from the Motor Press Guild for the C/D story “A Drive through Classic Americana in a Polestar 2.”  In 2023, her Car and Driver feature story “In Washington, D.C.’s Secret Carpool Cabal, It’s a Daily Slug Fest” was awarded 1st place in the 16th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club.
 
Source: caranddriver.com