Mazda’s push to be taken seriously in the premium market gains momentum with the launch of the CX-60 and upcoming CX-70 and CX-90 SUVs. And convinced that premium vehicles deserve premium paints to show them off to their best effect, Mazda has created another upscale color, this one called Rhodium White Premium.
The new paint is the third one created using Mazda’s Takuminuri process, the others being Soul Red Metallic and Machine Gray Premium. Like those paints, Rhodium White Premium consists of three distinct layers, starting with a color layer, in this case white, at the bottom, which Mazda says delivers a silky smooth, fine-grain white.
Mazda’s paint boffins explain that the color layer on white cars is usually thicker than it is when other colors are used to prevent the undercoat showing through. But in this case a newly developed pigment enabled Mazda to reduce the thickness of the color layer by 30 percent compared with the less exotic Snowflake White Pearl Mica.
Related: Mazda Confirms 5 New SUVs For 2022 And 2023, Including US-Only CX-50
That base color layer is topped with an ultra-thin, high luminance layer of aluminum flakes that reflect light and flatter the car’s Kodo design characteristics. Again, Mazda has been able to slim down the amount of material used, reducing the depth of the reflective layer to 0.5 microns, or around 7 percent of the thickness of a usual reflective layer. The final touch is a glossy top coat of clear lacquer.
Mazda says this fancy Rhodium White Premium paint will be predominantly reserved for the company’s Large Product group of models, and will be available this summer on the new European-market CX-60. North America isn’t getting the CX-60 because Mazda has opted to develop bigger CX-70 and CX-90 models that it thinks are a better match to the U.S. market, but both of those SUVs will be available with the new color. Of the two, the three-row CX-90 lands first, hitting showrooms late in 2022, with the five-seat CX-70 following in 2023.