First Look: All-New 2011 Mazda BT-50 Global Pickup Truck - PickupTrucks.com
The Mazda BT-50 is the sister truck to Ford's all-new Ranger global small pickup. Both were developed by a team led by Ford’s Australian engineering team, although Mazda had considerable input from the start. While the trucks are almost identical underneath and share many parts, Mazda’s designers have given the BT-50 a radically different look. The Ranger is more traditional with predominantly straight edges, while Mazda has gone for a much more shapely design that it describes as emotive. Its dramatic nose sets it apart from other more conservative commercial vehicles and links it to the Mazda passenger car range. In Mazda’s own words, it wanted the BT-50 to look like a “sophisticated beast. The truck’s chief designer, Ryo Yanagisawa, said he looked to nature for inspiration when it came to shaping the BT-50 — more specifically, a picture of a lion. This kind of inspiration was the basis of the emotional design that we worked so hard to achieve with the all-new BT-50. ". The BT-50's interior is not as wild as the exterior, but it’s a more adventurous design compared with other commercial... Source: news.pickuptrucks.com
