Tokyo Motor Show - Mazda

What's difficult to miss?
The dramatic four-seater Senku coupe concept. It could give clues to the designs Mazda is coming up with for its next generation of coupes.

Power is delivered by a petrol-electric rotary engine to the rear wheels, while three external cameras beam images of the outside world into the cabin. One uses infra-red technology for safer night-time driving.

Those big sliding side doors probably won’t make production, though – you’d need at least five feet behind the car and three feet beside it to get out through them. Slip into a tight space in a supermarket car park and you’d be stuck.

They say
'The overarching design aesthetic is sharpness and mellowness. It’s the colour of a sushi chef’s knife.'

We say
It’s a nice colour.

Anything else about?
The all-new eight-seater MPV which goes on sale in Japan next spring but will never see the light of day over here.

UK bosses can’t see a good reason for introducing it alongside the excellent seven-seater Mazda 5 that arrived this year. Frankly, neither can we.

As well as the petrol-electric rotary engine, Mazda also has a hydrogen-electric hybrid version of the powerplant on display. Don’t expect to find hydrogen at your local forecourt for a good many years yet, though.

Let us know…
…if you know what Senku means. Usually there’s a translation, but Mazda hasn’t told us what it means this time. Something to do with sushi, perhaps?