Detroit 2008: Mazda Furai, a mightier wind

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Wind metaphors are all the rage here at the show. Mazda is rocking the stand with its utterly outrageous, completely captivating Furai race/street car. The name means ‘the sound of wind,’ but considering that this car is a reskinned version of an LMP2 Le Mans race car with an ear-shattering three-rotor, 450-horsepower engine fitted amidships, its sound promises to be more like a hurricane in a seashell.

The Furai -- another of Mazda’s recent Nagare design concepts -- is a collaboration between Mazda Design and Swift Engineering, the makers of race chassis. The extravagant, fluted, twining design -- rather like a open book with pages lifting and ruffling in a gentle breeze -- might seem like pure styling indulgence. But, according to Mazda North America design director Franz von Holzhausen, the intricate surfaces shape aero turbulence so effectively that future Mazda race cars in the Le Mans series may share the organic surface. This is great news for Mazda, allowing it to promote a corporate image in a landscape of look-alike, anonymized race cars.

Mazda also showed a coaster-wheeled Taiki street car. Eh.

-- Dan Neil