Mazda, Mazda, Mazda… what are you up to? The company is teasing its newest concept car ahead of the 2025 Tokyo Motor Show, and while we know next to nothing about it, the small sliver of a silhouette we can see points to something incredibly promising. It’s called the “Vision Model,” and Mazda says it’s going to represent the direction of future Mazda vehicles and symbolize the company’s theme for the show. “The joy of driving fuels a sustainable tomorrow,” the automaker said. I like where this is headed.
The teaser image itself, a look at the greenhouse from the rear-3/4 view, doesn’t give too much away. We’re able to see the steeply raked windshield and sweeping roofline characteristic of a coupe or fastback, but here’s the thing: I don’t think this is a traditional two-door coupe. If you look very closely, you can see what appears to be a B-pillar in the middle of that “window” section. That means this concept is probably akin to stuff like the BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe and Mercedes-Benz CLS. That’s a vibe I can really get behind.
I’ll tell you what it almost certainly isn’t: an SUV. I’m sure this will be a great relief to people on the internet who love to hate on such things. It’s also probably not a new iteration of the Iconic SP concept we saw a few years back, sweet as that might be.
Concepts of a concept
A four-door coupe concept isn’t exactly a foreign concept to Mazda. It debuted the Vision Coupe Concept back at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, which still looks great today. While it never officially went on sale, its design language helped shape Mazdas that came after it, like the 3 and 6.
It’s impossible to say what the Vision Model will be powered by. More likely than not, it’ll have some sort of all-electric powertrain, but never bet against Mazda to do something totally weird. Of course, the company’s motorshow theme is sustainability, so it’s going to have some sort of electric component, but maybe it won’t be a fully electric model.
Perhaps it’ll have some sort of wild and wacky rotary engine range extender under the hood. Who knows? Mazda has a penchant for sticking rotaries in everything other than its production cars, so why should the Vision Model be any different?
