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Mazda 787B and Vision Gran Turismo tower over Goodwood in 131-foot sculpture

Mazda is being honored at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed by getting the space to create the event's annual sculpture outside Goodwood House. Given this year's theme of "Flat-out and fearless: racing on the edge," the Japanese automaker is showing off two of its racers at the very top of an intertwined spire that rises over 131 feet above the motoring event. The statue's design is the work of artist Gerry Judah, and it's made from over 132 tons of steel, including 418 beams, towering over the event. A Mazda 787B, the only Japanese car to ever score an overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the company's LM55 Vision Gran Turismo concept are featured at the very top. Spectators can certainly get a good view of the racers, too, because the sculpture twists to actually hang the cars above visitors. "Gerry has faithfully expressed our brand in a striking and beautiful structure that is clearly Kodo. There is a lightness and strength to the sculpture, yet it gives the cars movement and energy," said Ikuo Maeda, the General Manager of the Design Division at Mazda, in the announcement about the statue. Each year, Goodwood selects an automaker to create an artistic piece with the brand's vehicles outside of the estate's manor. Mazda shares some very prestigious company in being picked, too. Often rising high into the sky, in the past we've seen outstanding work from Audi, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, and Porsche. Goodwood celebrates Mazda's motorsport heritage Mazda is the subject of the central feature at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed Immense sculpture features Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B and LM55 virtual racer Goodwood / Leverkusen, 25 June 2015. Mazda's racing heritage is the centre of attention at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed. The central feature of the annual motoring event is a spectacular 40-metre high sculpture in front of Goodwood House featuring two Mazda racers bursting into the sky on a twisting track of steel beams. Inspired by Mazda's KODO – Soul of Motion design, the creation of artist Gerry Judah conveys a grace and agility that disguises the complexity of the installation, which is made from 120 tonnes of steel. Each of the 418 steel beams is stacked at a different angle, curling the structure so that the cars at the top actually hang over the spectators below.

Mazda6 diesel engine delayed over low performance, still coming

Oh Mazda... we had many hopes for the promised diesel four-cylinder in the Mazda6, but those have remained largely unfulfilled, as the oil-burning powerplant has failed to appear on dealer lots following its 2012 LA Auto Show announcement. Despite engineering issues that forced the company to announce that the program was delayed back in September 2013, Mazda remains adamant that the 2.2-liter Skyactiv-D is still coming to our shores. "We're still very much committed to diesel," Mazda's North American CEO, Jim O'Sullivan, told Automotive News. "We are still working on getting the performance aspects up to where we want them, and we do have a plan – an engineering road map – to get it done." According to AN, Mazda's initial plan with the 2.2-liter diesel was to build an engine so clean it could get by without an aftertreatment system, which generally accounts for the price premium of diesel engines versus their gas counterparts. The new system has come with performance issues, though, necessitating the delays. "If [we were] a commodity brand and didn't care about that, it would be on the market right now," O'Sullivan told AN. "But I know the people were expecting something from us, expecting certain drive characteristics and performance, and I didn't want to disappoint them." While O'Sullivan's defense of the diesel Mazda is admirable, the exec stops short of giving us an indication of when the new engine will finally arrive.

Why we can't have better headlights here in the U.S.

It wouldn't be a European auto show if we weren't teased with at least one mainstream vehicle we can't have here. At the Geneva Motor Show last week, the small but vocal contingent of shooting-brake buffs lamented that the Mazda6 wagon won't be coming to our shores, although they can take comfort in the fact that the vehicle won't get the torquey 250-horsepower 2.5-liter turbocharged gasoline engine we'll get here. Mercedes-Benz also announced a new headlight technology in Geneva that likely won't be available here anytime soon. It's just the latest in a long line of innovative and potentially lifesaving front-lighting solutions that the federal government doesn't allow in this country due to outdated standards — and a current lack of leadership at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mercedes-Benz's new Digital Light system that debuted in Geneva uses a computer chip to activate more than a million micro-reflectors to better illuminate the road ahead. The Digital Light headlamps works with the vehicle's cameras, sensors and navigation mapping to adjust lighting for the given location and situation and to detect other road users. The Digital Light technology also serves as an extended head-up display of sorts by projecting symbols on the pavement ahead to alert drivers to, say, slippery conditions or pedestrians in the road. And it can even project lines on the road in a construction zone or through tight curves to show the driver the correct path. Digital Light will be available on Mercedes-Maybach vehicles later this year, although like any technology it's bound to trickle down to less expensive vehicles. That is, if we ever get it here in the U.S. Audi, a leader in automotive lighting, has repeatedly run into snags trying to bring state-of-the-art car headlights to the U.S. The German luxury automaker's recently introduced matrix laser headlight system, which performs many of the same trick as Mercedes-Benz's Digital Light, also isn't legal on U.S. roads. And five years after the introduction of its matrix-beam LED lighting, which illuminates more of the road without blinding oncoming motorists with brights by simultaneously operating high and low beams, Audi still can't bring that technology to the U.S. either.