Mazda sketch teases for Concept Debut at 2007 L.A. Auto Show

HIROSHIMA, Japan – Mazda Motor Corporation today announced the global reveal of an all-new concept car, Nagare (pronounced na-gah-reh), at the Greater Los Angeles International Auto Show, during a press conference at 4:05 PM on November 29, 2006. Following on the heels of three very successful and exploratory Mazda design concepts – Kabura, Sassou and Senku – from last year’s show season, Nagare is the first indication of Mazda’s future design direction.

According to Mazda’s newly appointed global design director, Laurens van den Acker, Nagare sums up the future of Mazda design in one deceptively simple word -Flow. “Nagare is a celebration of proportions and surface language that will evolve into subsequent designs planned for presentation at future international autoshows. Nagare examines light and shadow, and begins to reveal the global design cues for the next generation of Mazda vehicles.”

Franz Von Holzhausen, Director of Design for Mazda North American Operations, who headed the Nagare design team in Irvine, Calif., describes Nagare as an entirely new and unique expression of Zoom-Zoom: “Inspired by the movement of nature’s elements, our designers have captured motion, energy and lightness and translated it into a beautiful language of lines and forms that are powerful yet effortless, provocative yet strikingly seductive.”

And there’s much more to come, too, as Mazda continues to evolve flow through future models. For now, Mazda enthusiasts can experience Nagare as an indication of Mazda Design’s confident step in a new direction.

Other vehicles on display at the Show include the recently launched Mazda CX-7 crossover SUV, the Mazda CX-9 three-row, seven-passenger SUV, which arrives in Mazda dealerships in early 2007, and the brilliantly designed MX-5 Miata Power Retractable Hard Top, along with the entire 2007 Mazda lineup.

Our take? A blog posting over at Automobile magazine speculates the Nagare will be similar the Kabura and Senku concepts (pictured below) displayed at previous shows. (Why not the Sassou concept, which is pictured below? Hmmm.) Personally, we think it’s unfair that Mazda’s forcing us to figure which one will eventually lead to the future RX-7.

Via Mazda