It’s pink, futuristic looking, and has an “out of this world” engine.
Earlier last week American singer and recording artist Dua Lipa dropped her long-awaited music video to her hit single “Levitating.” Taking inspiration from Japanese anime from the likes of “Sailor Moon” and a little bit of “Daft Punk,” “Levitating” is a futuristic, space-themed take on falling in love.
In several scenes Dua Lipa is driving a JDM classic, but what car is it?
Dua Lipa is driving a pink Mazda Cosmo sport aka the world’s first volume production sports car powered by a two-rotary engine.
In “Levitating” we see Dua Lipa driving around the cosmos in an open-top Cosmo Sport which, by the way, Mazda never made a convertible version.
In one scene she’s defying gravity with her unstrapped luggage and friends in the rear seats while in another scene she’s navigating the intergalactic highways with free-floating billboards pointing the way.
So, why did Dua Lipa choose a now obscure Japanese sports car? It’s both a stylistic choice honoring the medium which she showcased her music video, a clever play on words, and, in some respects, the perfect vehicle given its history.
As you can tell, Levitating takes many stylistic anime cues from 1980s animation series like Creamy Mami- the Magic Angel and Magical Princess Minky Momo.
Animation house Nostalook animated Levitating and did their “best to create a retro and cute atmosphere like the 80’s anime.”
The Mazda Cosmo Sport also has “Cosmo” in its name, which means “relating to the universe at large.”
First prototyped and produced in 1967, the Cosmo Sport was built in the middle of the global “Space Race.”
Embed from Getty ImagesWith mankind fixated on the stars, many car companies at the time drew inspiration and hoped to capitalize on consumer’s fixation on all things futuristic.
Unlike most cars with regular piston engines, the Cosmo Sport was the first production car to use a rotary engine, one that employed two rotating rotary pistons.
With a fewer moving parts, smooth operation, and slower internal movements, it was a revolutionary way at making power with combustion engines.
It was truly “out of this world.”
Despite its 1-liter displacement (most small engines today are at least 50 percent larger) the tiny Cosmo Sport rotary engine made 110 HP and nearly 100 lb-ft.
The little pocket rocket could hit 114 MPH, no problem.
Although they stopped making the Cosmo Sport in 1972, not to mention phasing out the Mazda Rotary in 2011, its legacy lives on in motorsport and future hybrid vehicles.
It’s cool to see Dua Lipa giving the green light to a classic JDM car that each passing generation soon forgets.
