The FC Sport was the only significant concept car debut at LA. According to Dave Marek, Chief Designer of the Advanced Design studio where the concept was designed, the decision to display the car in LA was a late one from Honda and the car was done on a very limited budget.
Though an exterior-only model was on show at the stand, Honda also had an animation showing the interior configuration, if not its detail design (see our New Cars section for the animation).
The designer of the car, Nicolas David (who now works for Jaguar and so was not credited by Honda), started the design by repackaging the Honda FCX Clarity fuel-cell powertrain at the rear, just behind a McLaren F1-style three-seat arrangement. The animation shows the scissor-doors raise up to access the cab-forward interior where the central driver's seat is a fixed extension of the rear bulkhead and the flanking passengers sit facing slightly outboard.
Notable aspects of the design are the long cab-forward proportions, which then unusually work with a very short front overhang and long tapering rear to give a strong dynamic imbalance. A similarly innovative device is the way the rocker area tapers forwards under the doors to counterbalance the cabin that tapers rearwards to the small, flat, hexagonally shaped rear of the car.
The form language of the FC Sport is also very distinctive with crisp faceted surfaces working well with the strongly graphical quality of the design - although it was hard to read in the white show car, which also disguised a lack of surface refinement.
Following the CRZ and the OSM, the FC Sport is the third white compact Honda sports car concept to debut in the last year. It is the most radical of the three and an impressive design, but it is let down by a lack of development or apparent relevance.
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This new 3 is one of the most important production debuts in LA. It follows the 6 and 2 as the third of the new generation Mazdas launched under design director Laurens van den Acker, although it would have been designed mostly under his predecessor Moray Callum.
Based on the Ford Focus platform, the two sedans in LA will also be joined by a more European orientated hatchback variant in the near future. Unlike its predecessor, the rear aspect of the sedan looks like it was compromised by some of the hatchback variant's hard points, appearing slightly tall and truncated.
The design language is essentially a combination of themes introduced on the larger Mazda6 and the smaller Mazda2, but the new car doesn't introduce any significant new design elements bar the large front grille. This smiling aperture is filled with a mesh grille and slim bumper beam - which unusually pushes out forwards of the car - and is flanked by two prominent side air intakes that similarly stand away from the main front surface. The lamps also stand proud of the surface and have a subtle ‘Nagare' design detailing within them.
Inside, the car features a Civic-style split level instrument display and an overall appealing and contemporary aesthetic, undermined by cheap gray materials and some slightly old fashioned silver-painted plastic.
The previous generation 3 was a very successful global market design for Mazda that balanced distinction with a broad market acceptance. This new design follows a similar formula, but just fails to deliver the same level of appeal to today's market as its predecessor did five years ago.
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New Car: Mazda3
The new RX SUV was unveiled this week at the LA Auto Show, ten years after the first generation RX debuted in LA and 20 years after the Lexus brand was announced at the LA show.
A progressive evolution of its distinctive predecessors, which is significant as Lexus has been accused in the past of having derivative design. It is also unusual for an Asian company to evolve, and not to reinvent, with a vehicle replacement program. But beyond the core proportions and graphics of the RX, its surface and detail design is very innovative, extending the Lexus form language introduced in the current LS.
This carefully controlled and very distinctive design is defined by subtle wave-like surfaces and feature lines. The most prominent of these are the shut lines between lamps and fenders - as on the LS - but also in the body side, where a very slim convex shoulder surface rolls down into a concave undercut before pulling out into a more conventional lower body side. The grille also exhibits this innovative wave-like surfacing with flutes that fan out from the base, taper upwards and curve in, out, and in again.
The classic RX DLO continues with the odd slight kink above the rear window, above which is a feature line that takes the core arc of the DLO rearwards into the tailgate window. There is also an unusual recess at the bottom of the flanks that stops half way along the rear door.
Inside, the wave-like theme of the exterior is continued and emphasized, with an instrument panel that gently sweeps around and down before wrapping around the center stack - a theme also picked up on the door inners and steering wheel hub. Other core interior innovations are the ‘son-of i-Drive' secondary control interface Lexus calls 'remote touch' - a cross between a computer mouse and a joystick - which sits on the center console; and the handbag storage area below the center console.
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