Meet the Shinari, Mazda's latest concept car. Handsome isn't it? An upmarket four-door, four-seat hatchback-booted coupe in the mould of the Aston Martin Rapide and Mercedes CLS.

But what’s most notable about it is how finished it is. Concept cars are normally styling bucks, made of clay or wood, a flash surface with nothing underneath. But this one, unveiled at an exclusive private viewing in Milan and not destined to appear at the Paris Motorshow, has a proper interior and even drives -although the engine noise was a curiously indistinct blend of rotary and piston, ‘to keep you guessing’, an engineer told us.

It is a four-door sedan but it certainly doesn’t appear to be in a usual, boring way. The rear doors don’t have a complete pillar, instead, the roof line just continues all the way over the boot lid in one smooth line. And check out the rear guards that mimic a squatting lion or kangaroo, with it’s big lower leg running along half of the sill.

Translating this initial moment of 'instantaneous movement' being pursued by Mazda design into the Mazda Shinari Concept car presented various challenges to both the designers and the modelers working on the project. The process involved a series of activities that saw the team draw inspiration from a variety of places. This included each team member creating sketches and freely sculpting models from clay to represent their own perceptions of 'KODO - Soul of Motion'. It then continued with the exploration of the functional beauty seen in traditional Japanese crafts and the motion witnessed in Japan's ancient martial arts.

As the team continued this exploratory process, Nakamuta focused on a force so powerful that it can bend a strong section of steel plate. The Mazda Shinari Concept design adds subtle twists and tension to create forms that express agile and powerful movement, resulting in the expression of 'KODO - Soul of Motion'.

Mazda is taking a little of a vivacious step for them with this new design concept and they are increasing the move by announcing that they will also be working on improving the quality level of its interiors for future vehicles: "We want to play in the same group as BMW and Audi. On fit and finish we want the same level of quality." That’s a little of a reach, don’t you think?

Mazda hasn't been a player in the subcompact market for more than a decade, but that didn't stop enthusiasts from calling on the Japanese automaker to import its world market Mazda2 to North America. That wish has finally come true, while the North American Mazda2 gets some minor changes, considered upgrades, in interior materials and revisions to the audio and climate controls compared to world market versions.

The U.S. car will forego the 1.3-liter inline-fours available in Japan and Europe in favor of a more powerful 1.5-liter four-cylinder. Power ratings are 100 hp and 98 lb-ft of torque—hardly numbers to get excited about, but competitive with the Fit’s 117 and 106, respectively. Weighing in, Mazda says, at 2300 to 2350 pounds depending on trim level, the 2 is a couple hundred pounds lighter than the Fit, so we expect Fit-like acceleration from the Mazda.

Now, Mazda hopes to achieve this same sort of positioning within the B-car segment – a class that's grown substantially in America and is projected to double in size within the next few years. The 2011 Mazda2 comes to town right on the heels of its sister car, the Ford Fiesta, but as we found out after a lengthy drive through the city of Montréal and the countryside of Canada's Québec province, it's a wholly different machine. And while the Fiesta is sure to provide some serious competition for the 2, there are plenty of other well-to-do B cars in the U.S. that are ready to be sized up against the minuscule Mazda.