Photo: iamtiffanyang / Instagram
At least in America, Mazda has not done much since the arrival at dealerships of its CX-50 compact crossover SUV and the introduction of the flagship CX-90 three-row CUV destined to brawl with the likes of Honda's Pilot or Toyota's all-new, first-ever 2024 Grand Highlander, among others.
Sure, they still market passenger cars like the Mazda3 hatchback or sedan and the iconic MX-5 Miata roadster or RF, but those are everything the Japanese automaker has to offer in the United States. Clearly, the focus has moved to crossover SUVs, with the range now comprised of the base $23k Mazda CX-30, CX-5 and CX-50, plus the large CX-9 and all-new, first-ever CX-90.
Luckily, they are all still quite affordable even as Mazda moves upmarket with its usual Kodo design philosophy and ethos, as even the CX-90 starts from below $40k. But, of course, fans might be asking for more – such as a flagship sports car above the current MX-5 Miata that would represent a calling card for the company rather than a cash cow.
Alas, the idea of a sports car flagship clashes with the need to sell as many crossovers as possible to satisfy the current appetite for all things CUVs, SUVs, and trucks – especially in North America. No worries, there are always solutions to such conundrums – and some brands have discovered them even in the real world. Remember how Porsche and Lamborghini separately thought that a sports car on 'stilts' might do wonders for their brand image and then cooked up the limited edition 911 Dakar and Huracan Sterrato?
Or how Toyota thought that maybe the only way to preserve the legacy of traditional four-door sedans would be to intertwine it with the novel approach of crossovers and then reintroduce to the United States the latest S235 Crown as a crossover-sedan mix? Well, the same could happen with Mazda if one of their former interns had her way. Meet Tiffany Yang, a CCS MFA Trans Design master student known as iamtiffanyang on social media, who shares her dream of a novel type of Mazda sports car CUV, aka the Mazda Thesis: DX-Vision.
With significant experience in working directly with automakers because she was an intern for Koenigsegg in 2021, for Honda in 2022, and for Mazda USA during the fall-winter season of 2022-2023, this pixel master decided to jump out of her usual comfort zone of supercars right into a combination of an F1 track car with Dakar Rally Mazda. Well, the motivation might be easy to explain if we see it as an on- and off-track model that could easily duke it out with the Porsche 911 Dakar, Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, as well as the upcoming S650 Ford Mustang Raptor R if the rumors of an off-road muscle car pan out.
Luckily, they are all still quite affordable even as Mazda moves upmarket with its usual Kodo design philosophy and ethos, as even the CX-90 starts from below $40k. But, of course, fans might be asking for more – such as a flagship sports car above the current MX-5 Miata that would represent a calling card for the company rather than a cash cow.
Alas, the idea of a sports car flagship clashes with the need to sell as many crossovers as possible to satisfy the current appetite for all things CUVs, SUVs, and trucks – especially in North America. No worries, there are always solutions to such conundrums – and some brands have discovered them even in the real world. Remember how Porsche and Lamborghini separately thought that a sports car on 'stilts' might do wonders for their brand image and then cooked up the limited edition 911 Dakar and Huracan Sterrato?
Or how Toyota thought that maybe the only way to preserve the legacy of traditional four-door sedans would be to intertwine it with the novel approach of crossovers and then reintroduce to the United States the latest S235 Crown as a crossover-sedan mix? Well, the same could happen with Mazda if one of their former interns had her way. Meet Tiffany Yang, a CCS MFA Trans Design master student known as iamtiffanyang on social media, who shares her dream of a novel type of Mazda sports car CUV, aka the Mazda Thesis: DX-Vision.
With significant experience in working directly with automakers because she was an intern for Koenigsegg in 2021, for Honda in 2022, and for Mazda USA during the fall-winter season of 2022-2023, this pixel master decided to jump out of her usual comfort zone of supercars right into a combination of an F1 track car with Dakar Rally Mazda. Well, the motivation might be easy to explain if we see it as an on- and off-track model that could easily duke it out with the Porsche 911 Dakar, Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, as well as the upcoming S650 Ford Mustang Raptor R if the rumors of an off-road muscle car pan out.
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