Eighteen months into his job as Mazda’s design manager, Laurens van den Acker feels like “I’ve landed a F1 seat in a good team.”

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“I don’t have to fight for what I want – it’s a well-oiled design machine and I now have the luxury of putting my foot down, pedal to the metal,” he said.


Working for multiple brands at Ford previously, van den Acker said that the refreshing aspect was that “you work 100% Mazda instead of not being sure whether it was Lincoln one day, Mercury the next and Ford another day.


The new 6, unveiled at the show on Tuesday, had largely been signed off before he arrived.


“I really like its boldness and its exquisiteness,” he said. Its boldness comes from the strong front end which captures the spirit of a sports car like the RX-8 in a saloon.

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The exquisiteness is the attention to detail around the lights, especially at the rear.


Every new Mazda will share those themes, he said. “We’re searching for our soul and getting close to it now,” he said.


“Our challenge will be to become even more distinctive which is essential for a small brand like us.” Part of that challenge will be to improve the proportions of future Mazdas. “That affects platforms so it’s a big challenge. The new 2 [Demio] is a great example of how we can do this, now we have to do it for our other models.”