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Mazda MX-81 - Air supremacy

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Created on June 18, 2021

Text:

Paul Krüger

Photos:

Mazda

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Mazda

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Shortly after completion of the restoration, the Bertone Aria poses for a second time in front of Milan Cathedral

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Shortly after its completion, the Bertone Aria poses in front of Milan Cathedral

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Marc Deschamps' design sketches. The wheels are strongly reminiscent of the Citroën BX presented in 1982

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Contemporary press photo. The pigeons seem to be unimpressed by the prototype

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Contemporary press photo. Quarries and gravel pits were popular photo backdrops for design studies at the time

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - No sports car from the eighties without folding headlights

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The restored Aria in the Superstile workshop in Turin

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - There are two "microwave sensors" next to the reversing lights on the right and left

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Rear lights integrated into the C-pillar only became modern 20 years later

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The enormously large windows are striking

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Bertone christened his Mazda prototype "Aria", Italian for "air" - or "aria"

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - MX-81 stands for "Mazda eXperimental" and the year of presentation

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The Aria has no steering wheel. It is steered via a rubber-covered caterpillar that slides around the instrument panel

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The air conditioning system is just a dummy. Nine painted blue lines simulate an LCD temperature display

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The plush plaid upholstery reflects the taste of the late seventies

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The body has been filled and sanded. Now it can be primed

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The primer is on. Now comes the top coat

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The original interior has been carefully refurbished

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The saddler uses the steam cleaner to remove 39 years' worth of dirt from the terry cloth of the seats

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The insulation on the inside of the hood has also been renewed

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - Once the first coat of primer has been applied, it is filled and sanded again

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The 14-inch alloy wheels were newly powder-coated

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The Aria was completely stripped down to the dashboard and carpet. An interesting detail is the electric exterior mirror glued to the side window

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The removed headlights watch the progress in the paint booth with interest

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Mazda MX-81 (1981) - The Aria was completely handcrafted by Bertone

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The Luce mid-size sedan ("1500" in Europe) was the second Mazda in Giugiaro's guise after the Familia small car ("800").

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Summary

Forty years after its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda presented the Bertone MX-81 prototype to the public for a second time - fully restored. The design, which was both futuristic and had retro elements, is still impressive today. This article shows the prototype then and now, but above all tells the story of its creation and restoration.

This article contains the following chapters

Belgians, Italians and Japanese
Mazda technology and microwaves
Steering without a steering wheel
Almost 40 years in storage

Estimated reading time: 3min

Preview (beginning of the article)

After the Familia and Luce models with Bertone bodywork had been great successes for Mazda in the 1960s, the company wanted to try again with the combination of Japanese technology and Italian bodywork at the beginning of the 1980s. They wanted to remain true to the Carozzeria Bertone. However, Giorgio Giugiaro, who had once designed the two graceful saloons, had since become self-employed and was no longer available for the new Italo-Mazda. So in 1980, it fell to the Belgian Marc Deschamps, who had already dressed the Citroën Camargue almost a decade earlier, to wrap the technology of the second-generation 323, which had just been presented, in a futuristic designer dress without any specifications from Hiroshima. At first glance, the result presented at the Tokyo Motor Show in November 1981 looks like a smoothed version of the Volvo Tundra designed two years earlier by Marcello Gandini with flush bumpers, vertical rear lights and enlarged window areas.

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