Mazda's Famous Red Paint Still Turns Heads: Here's Why It's Special

There are definite truths successful nan automotive world. A Porsche 911 has its motor successful nan rear, old Land Cruisers person worse aero than bread, and Mazda's Soul Red Crystal overgarment will make you look twice.

Every azygous time. You'll spot it crossed a Target parking batch nether harsh fluorescent lights — it'll glow pinch a extent that makes a Land Rover look for illustration it sewage painted astatine Maaco. It's a colour that has nary business looking this bully connected a crossover, each for a humble $595 upcharge connected nan options sheet.

The concealed isn't conscionable a bucket of reddish paint; it's a fanatical obsession translated into manufacturing. Mazda calls nan process takuminuri, aliases "paint by maestro craftsman," wherever nan institution programmed mill robots to mimic nan manus movements of a maestro painter. This allows them to use nan overgarment successful ridiculously cleanable layers — a feat erstwhile reserved for civilization shops, now connected a mass-production scale.

It's a stunning accomplishment that has go a halfway portion of Mazda's quiet push upmarket, proving you don't request a six-figure value tag to present thing genuinely special. It's a shame everyone is buying boring colors.

Soul Red Crystal isn't conscionable a color; it's an optical illusion. Your mean car overgarment is mostly a two-stage affair (beyond nan primer): a furniture of colour and a clear overgarment connected top. Mazda's attack is acold much analyzable — a tri-coat process layered complete a grey primer that manipulates ray to create its signature look. It's fundamentally a mass-produced type of a classical candy-apple overgarment job.

The first layer, nan reflective/absorptive coat, contains microscopic aluminum flakes that enactment for illustration mini mirrors, creating superb highlights. It besides has light-absorbing flakes that nutrient deep, rich | shadows, giving nan car's assemblage lines a melodramatic contrast. 

Next comes nan translucent coat, a semi-transparent furniture pinch a high-chroma reddish pigment. Light passes done this reddish layer, bounces disconnected nan metallic guidelines beneath it, and reflects backmost to your eye, creating that "glowing from within" effect that makes nan colour look 10 feet deep. 

The last furniture is simply a modular clear overgarment for gloss and protection. The consequence is simply a decorativeness pinch 50% much extent and 20% greater colour saturation than nan original Soul Red.

Mazda manages each this pinch its eco-friendly, water-based Aqua-tech system, which consolidates nan process to trim power depletion and emissions of volatile integrated compounds. It's a flex of engineering that shows you don't person to destruct nan world to make it beautiful.

Now for nan portion that each proprietor pinch a Mazda this colour either knows is coming, aliases will find retired soon enough. Soul Red Crystal tin be, to put it charitably, fragile. The net is filled pinch anecdotal grounds from owners who committedness nan overgarment chips if you look astatine it nan incorrect way. And erstwhile a spot does happen, it whitethorn uncover nan grey primer underneath, making nan blemish guidelines retired for illustration a sore thumb.

Repairing it is nary elemental task, either. Matching nan cleanable colour for a creator is already magic. It's a meticulous, multi-stage process that requires trial panels and blending into adjacent panels to instrumentality nan oculus into a cleanable match. A seemingly mini bump tin easy move into a multi-thousand-dollar repair bill. It's nary wonderment truthful galore owners see a overgarment protection film.

But here's nan thing: cipher cares. The hassle is nan value of admittance for thing that feels live successful different ray — it's deeper than thing connected TV these days. It shows Mazda is consenting to prioritize thing genuinely exceptional, moreover if it's not nan astir pragmatic choice. This overgarment is simply a statement: Craftsmanship and emotion still matter, moreover if nan craftsmanship is done by robots.