Mazda RX500

I do wish automakers were more innovative. 

Innovative as in, makes driving more enjoyable, affordable, and on-the-road safe for more people. Not innovative as in, features, bloatware, and cameras.

I’m shortcutting this argument because I don’t have extra energy to type this, so put simply, like all technologies, the automobile is converging into fewer styles, shapes, and price points. 

The inside of our vehicles is becoming like all technologies; TVs went from space aged consoles to black plastic slabs. Phones went from tactile, hinged communications devices to black plastic slabs. Car interiors have gone from command-level access to black plastic slabs.

A few months ago, when watching the creators of Star Trek’s graphical interface, I finally understood the genius potential of touchscreens.

Speaking to Mythbusters’ Adam Savage, graphic designers Michael and Denise Okuda described how they’d coach actors to move authentically through a scene, while the panels themselves were simply props of glass, lights and color. The characters’ fictional background as competent officers who knew how to run a starship was a big help in this. The other? 

“These control panels are based on your user profile,” said Michael. “So the button you hit is correct, always remember that. […] At the beginning of The Next Generation, Rick Berman asked me to talk to all the cast members, and show them how to do it.

“The main thing I said is, ‘Just hit a few buttons, and it needs to look easy.’ Because I did not want to tell them, ‘That’s the button to fire the phasers’ because then it’s going to stress them out, and you’ll see it in their performance. I wanted them to just go ‘boop’ as if they’ve gone to Starfleet Academy for four years.”

When in-car technology becomes intuitive to the point at which the User Interface (UI) adapts on the fly to our preferences, or we can fully customize things to our liking, then I’m much closer to accepting our black slab display screen overlords.

That would be — dare I say it — innovative. 

So why do the outsides of our vehicles all look the same? If we’re talking driving enjoyment, well, I’d very much enjoy not driving an overweight crossover or truck.

Old concept cars like this very futuristic yet analog Mazda RX500 are the perfect antidote to our dark future, and I’m hoping that along with once-prohibited drugs such as cannabis, LSD, and psilocybin, enterprising automakers go back and find new ways of building on the old hits.

About the same size as a modern Scion FR-S (Subaru BRZ, Toyota GT86, etc. etc.), the RX500 was introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1970. 

Fuelled by Japan’s rise as a global superpower, Japanese products of all sorts were heavily influenced by themes of space, technology, robots, typography — and, of course the future.

There's no place on earth that pushed itself as quickly toward new technologies. Visitors to the Expo '70 in Osaka were treated to the theme “Progress and Harmony for Mankind," with Kiyonari Kikutake's space frame Expo Tower as a push pin for both the event and Metabolist architecture.

Sony, Ricoh, Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, and Sanyo fought for billboard space in major cities with the likes of Ultraman, TV show that starred a super-humanoid-powered giant from space, or Astro Boy, an android with human emotions created in the wake of a father grieving his biological son.

Many people see the RX500 and instantly think of the Mercedes-Benz C111, a similar-looking mid-engined, rotary-powered prototype car that the German automaker also tested extensively.

Here's the difference: while Mercedes-Benz might have been investigating a Wankel-powered sports car may one day be viable, Mazda looked at the same technology and believed that it was the future.

Plus, Mazda’s first rotary-powered sports car, the Cosmo, debuted before the C111, in 1967.

With plastic body panels and a weight of just 850 kg (1873 lbs.), the RX500 sports car had a mid-mounted 10A rotary motor for propulsion.

491cc, or 30 cu. in. of rotary engine gave an outsized 247 horsepower. Top speed was quoted as at least 200 km/h (125 mph), which is fast enough for Neo Tokyo.

Gullwing doors and a split-opening rear engine cover gave the concept some design flair. I think Ligier ripped-off the car's front end for the JS2, but out back there has been no production car quite like it.

Multi-coloured tail lights were to convey information to other drivers. Green lights shone during acceleration, orange at a constant speed, and a series of red lights were illuminated, depending on how severe you were braking.

Mazda said the concept was a test-bed for high-speed safety, but apart from the tail lights, I can't figure out what else is safety-related.

One detail I really like is the Alfa Romeo Montreal-style "pills" on the side of the car. Unlike the front-engined Montreal, however, the RX500's were functional intakes for its mid engine compartment.

After being shown, it was repainted twice, and has been shown in silver, yellow, and green. Thought lost for many years, it debuted again at the 2008 Tokyo Motor Show after a full restoration.

The RX500: definitely not a slab of black plastic, and in my eyes, more futuristic for it. Finally, the car in silver both before (with smoked headlight covers) and after its restoration.