For ages now, the car industry has frequently been one of partnership. Think Ford and Multimatic, Mercedes-McLaren, and DaimlerChrysler. Alright, so not all partnerships work out, but some really do. For years now, Mazda has partnered with Toyota, and the latest development on the Mazda side of that partnership is the use of Toyota’s hybrid system in the CX-50 crossover. However, just as Mazda is borrowing one of Toyota’s greatest assets, it’d only be fair for Toyota to borrow one of Mazda’s. No, it’s not the entire MX-5, but it is something important to Mazda’s brand identity.
Indeed, Toyota lays it out in the press release for the 2025 Corolla Cross. Now, we normally wouldn’t report on minor model changes that don’t involve new styling or powertrains, mostly because we prefer to write about diesel particulate filters that look like butts and other, more interesting bits of trivia, but something jumped off the page here. In the words of Toyota:
Available on the gas LE and XLE, and Hybrid SE and XSE grades, Soul Red Crystal is exclusive to the Corolla Cross model in the Toyota lineup. On the Corolla Cross Hybrid SE, XSE, and Nightshade models, Soul Red Crystal can be paired with a Jet Black Roof for a stylish two-tone combination.
Wait a second. Soul Red Crystal is a popular Mazda color, and one of the best shades of red currently offered in the industry. Since the Toyota Corolla Cross and Mazda CX-50 roll out of the same plant in Alabama, are we actually talking about the exact same shade that’s Mazda’s signature?
Actually, yes. A Toyota spokesperson has confirmed that it is indeed the exact same color. As per Toyota’s official statement, “Adding Soul Red Crystal to the color pallet gives us this opportunity due to our partnership with Mazda at our joint plant, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing (MTM) in Huntsville, AL.” Seems like it was more or less a case of bringing a color from one assembly line onto another.
Compared to most other factory colors, Soul Red Crystal is a bit complicated. Evolved out of the previous Soul Red iteration, it features a basecoat, a translucent tintcoat, and a top clearcoat. As Mazda stated when the color launched in 2016:
The new paint’s translucent layer features a newly developed highly saturated red pigment for a richer red. In addition to high-brilliance, extremely thin aluminum flakes, the reflective coat features light-absorbing flakes that intensify shaded areas and make it possible to achieve a depth of color that previously required two layers.
We’re talking about Mazda’s calling card here, a proprietary color that just about every new Mazda of the past eight years debuted in, now being rolled out across the Toyota Corolla Cross lineup. It seems like the sort of thing that’s hard to give up, but with new shades like Polymetallic Gray and Artisan Red, Mazda seems more willing to share the joy.
It’s safe to say that this will make the Corolla Cross’ color palette more vibrant, and it isn’t the first time a color has been shared across manufacturers. It actually happens more often than you’d think, except you likely wouldn’t know about it if you weren’t a nerd.
For example, Porsche has this program called Paint To Sample where, for the price of your firstborn, you can choose from an extended palette of colors, so long as you can get an allocation. Where does Porsche pluck all those shades from? Well, while some of them are heritage colors, some are essentially borrowed from other brands. Take Grigio Campovolo, for example. It’s a take on a historic Fiat color. Likewise, Carbon Black Metallic is a BMW color, as is San Marino Blue.
On the other side of the court, BMW’s Individual program lets in-the-know customers choose from a huge number of colors. How about Porsche’s Miami Blue, or Porsche’s Ruby Star, or even Ferrari’s Rosso Corsa, why not? So long as you have money to blow, the world is your oyster when it comes to paint.
However, Toyota offering Soul Red Crystal on the Corolla Cross is noteworthy, because this doesn’t normally happen with mainstream manufacturers on standard-order colors. So now, if you see a Soul Red Crystal 2025 Corolla Cross in the wild, you’ll be able to share some interesting trivia with whoever’s around.
(Photo credits: Toyota, Porsche, BMW)
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Not gonna lie, if I could go the whole 9 yards and repaint my Evo in any color, Soul Red would be it. As it stands, if I ever do, it’s gonna be the factory Rally Red because I cannot afford to do it right and strip the car down to the shell and paint ALL of it.
Now, if I hit the lottery, well, now it’s on like Donkey Kong.
I spoke with my body shop guy when this color was first released and his comment was that we’re deep into $10k optional colors (quality, type and whatnot) at luxury manufacturers there. He was wondering how Mazda is able to pull it off at that price at all.
Mazda’s red is definitely a beautiful paint and finish. It looks less so on this overly plasticky Toyota.
A bit off topic, but I wish Toyota had named the Corolla Cross the Matrix instead. The Corolla hatchback is noticeably a Corolla, but not so for the Cross. One of the things I love about my old Matrix is its usefulness using a wagon-hatch body.
Soul Red on my 2018 Mazda 3 is beautiful, but it does suffer from metamerism on some plastic parts – the rear spoiler and door handles noticeably. I’ve considered having the spoiler wrapped in black satin, topping it with the OEM add-on spoiler, or replacing it with something different (like a Racing Bees Z-Style wing).
Metamerism : a phenomenon that occurs when colors appear to match under one light source but not under another.
“As per Toyota’s official statement, “Adding Soul Red Crystal to the color pallet…”
Ugh, this kills me every time I see it.
Palette – a range of colors, or a board used to hold an artist’s paint
Pallet – wooden platform you use with a forklift to carry cargo
Palate – the roof of your mouth or talent in tasting wine or preferences in food
All pronounced the same, but very different words and meanings.
They just have one pallet of paint cans at any given time, and they just tossed a can of Soul Red on there. The paint has a nice mouthfeel and licking it off the palette is pleasing to my palate.
Masterful.
I mean, we are talking about automotive paints in industrial quantities so it’s far more likely to be taken from a pallet than a palette.
To be fair, they must buy a metric fuck ton of paint. That should probably be pallets, for accuracy’s sake. 😉
I’ve been in winemaking for 25 years, and while yes, we do use a ton of pallets, the number of otherwise on-point industry folk (wine writers, even!) who fuck up palate for one of its homonyms is astounding.
My favorite is a two-fer I saw on the back label boilerplate of a red blend, wish I could remember which winery. There were strained analogies of grape varietals as the paints of the winemaker’s pallet, chosen to please the sophisticated drinker’s palette.
I guess that’s more of an oh-fer two-fer.
My only question is “How long will it last?”
I don’t even want that fade to happen for a good ten years.
Sure, some of that requires me not to park it in the sun/wind and to detail it every X months (could someone please provide a professionally advised X?).
My 20+ year old car is finally getting the major flakes, i.e., no paint at all in spots, and I have to decide whether to wrap or paint or dump.
“ wrap or paint or dump.”
That sounds like a new version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
I was thinking Fuck, Marry, Kill.
The red getting lighter should not be a big issue with this kind of paint application. You have a clear coat and a translucent coat under that. It is not the single stage red you know and hate from the nineties. Most metallic paints today hold up very well and UV testing is done everywhere of the way with xenon arc lighting in the test equipment (avert your eyes).
Mazda also shares their Jet Black Mica, Wind Chill Pearl (white) and Cypress (green) with the Corolla Cross.
wind chill pearl is a a toyota color available on the cx-50 only. Jet black mica is mazda color , cypress is a toyota color.
In typical Toyota fashion, they’ll produce about 5 of these for the US market and any time you look at dealer inventory it’ll just be gray and white cars.
Toyota makes what they sell and they don’t allow customer orders to spec. So if they sell all the grey and white, why paint a color? It’s a chicken and egg situation and Toyota is the chicken farmer.
I just say this as a frustrated shopper who specs a nice blue with brown interior Toyota/Lexus and then casts a 500 mile net to see if one is actually in inventory somewhere only to come up empty in a sea of gray with black leather vehicles. So either they don’t make very many blues, or they get sold immediately.
It drives me crazy that brown and lighter shade interiors are impossible to find. Some automakers don’t even offer anything other than black! It has taken a few cars off my list over the years! I really hate black interiors! Just so dour and dark.
Yeah, Honda is one of them. Black, maybe gray if you are lucky. I really don’t want another car with a black interior.
It wouldn’t even be so bad if there were patterned fabric in the cars, but the most we ever get is red piping on the seats in the extremely expensive trim levels.
Toyota’s new Crown Signia has a gorgeous saddle brown interior. I wish it weren’t so desperately boring of a vehicle, but at least they are going in the right direction inside!
Oh I know. Same thing with manuals. How many would spec a manual but settle with an auto? What’s the point of even offering it if it’s not feasibly available.
toyota sells to 3 us distributors who order / pay for ALL of the cars. dealerships buy from the distributors and they get what they get. dealers have limited choice on options / trim and no choice on color. So while Toyota will let you spec your own options on their website the likelihood of you configuring a car with a set of options that will never existed is quite high!
So you’re telling me there’s a middleman before the middleman? This is from the factories globally, so both US and Japanese made vehicles have to go through one of these distributors?
yeah all north american toyotas go through distributors weather its made in usa/canada/mexico or japan. found this out on r/askcarsales on reddit but it’s not really a secret.
It’s amazing how many big industries, from automobiles to liquor have these incredible ecosystems of middlemen skimming a bit every step of the way.
And how state laws have sprung up over the years to make them a mandatory part of the chain.
Not to mention credit card companies taking a small percentage at every step of manufacturing. Raw materials, equipment, dealer sales, customer sales… Obviously there are other payment methods but I see credit sales from at least one vendor/buyer at every step of the process.
Toyota is the very worst about this. Getting a damn Toyota in a color around here is seemingly impossible. And it sucks because they have a couple of pretty great colors that exist in theory, but rarely in practice.
A couple months ago I saw a new Toyota in teal. Teal! Two-tone with a white roof, no less. It was so beautiful I just had to stare at it for a while. Never seen another Toyota in that color before or since, but there’s no way it wasn’t factory.
What model was it? There are a few pockets of color in the current lineup, but it’s like one or two models. The new Land Cruiser has a few nice shades.
I believe it was a C-HR. Little crossover you never see anyone in the car community talking about because at least in America it only comes with a CVT.
Well, after having rented one once in Spain, it also had probably some of the worst sightlines (or lack thereof) I’ve ever experienced in a passenger vehicle. The CVT didn’t help my impression, but it was a rental so whatever.
Especially considering the functional sacrifices made presumably for style, I didn’t find it’s looks appealing…. at all.
Those Toyota press photos are god awful.
Right? Never supposed to look at a car in the dark or in the rain to buy, yet here they are with photos of this brilliant color in the dark, in the rain. They already scratch this one?
Awful.. glad I’m not the only one to think so. Their graphics team should be put in the dog house for approving these images for release.
It’s very odd. Even discarding the notion they are “at night,” they are just a terrible edit to display this color. It’s somehow too dark and too light at the same time.
You joke about the MX-5 going to Toyota, but Mazda lost out on Fiat as a partner for the Miata, and Toyota is talking about adding a Celica back to the lineup……
Mazda’s been using some Toyota colors on the CX-50 coming out of the same plant, like the pearl white metallic (which isn’t the same as Mazda’s snowflake white pearl). I’m actually pretty sure Mazda’s Zircon Sand is related to another Toyota paint color as well.
But the biggest thing is when Toyota will finally unveil a Lexus using the Mazda-developed inline six, considering they bankrolled part of its development.
“But the biggest thing is when Toyota will finally unveil a Lexus using the Mazda-developed inline six, considering they bankrolled part of its development.”
Not to mention a new Supra with that inline six.
Cypress is the one I’m after when I get around to repainting my car. It’s got so many scuffs, scratches and chips already despite being a 2022. Though my fiancée might fight me on that one, because she loves the current white with the candy red wheels…
Now, Toyota just needs some actual soul to go with my favorite color.
Completely seriously: I could have broken this news two weeks ago if only I had paid closer attention to our Cross build sheet lol
Been comfortably over a month now since we put down a deposit on a new Cross. We were somewhat particular, so the dealer hasn’t had a ton of luck tracking one down. Seems like they started delving into straight-from-the-factory allocations and a couple weeks my salesman (also a close friend), sent me a build sheet for a prospective Cross
It had a VIN, but only a temp one, and it had almost all the specs as requested (activity hitch gone, black badges unfortunately here to stay). I saw the Red paint color and was satisfied, didn’t dig any deeper.
WELL, after I read this blog, I went back and checked the build sheet again and there it was: Soul Red Crystal lol I pleasant surprise amid all the setbacks and frustrations
I don’t know what it’s called, but I also like the darker red that I’ve seen on the CX-90. I’m too practical and drive too many miles for these kinds of layered paints, though.
artesian red and i like that one a lot too!
Mazda’s paint really is top notch. My CX-30 is Polymetal Gray, Dad’s ND is Machine Gray Metallic, and I know several people with Soul Red Crystal cars, and they are all really fun colors that do such cool things with different lighting conditions. I’m normally a big grayscale hater, but PMG is more blue than gray, and Machine Gray Metallic has all the depth, highlights, and lowlights of SRC but is more subtle than a bright red.
I’m curious to see how the corolla cross looks in SRC in person, since the fun of Mazda’s paints is that it really plays well with the compound curves in their design language, which the Corolla Cross is… lacking. Either way, seems like a win for everyone. Soul Red Crystal is amazing and should be available on all the cars.
Almost top notch. I don’t know if they lay it on particularly thin on the MX-5 or what, but the SRC on mine chipped if you looked at it funny. Pretty common complaint in the forums as well.
Yeah that’s what I see a lot of comments about online. Top notch in appearance, and certainly in repair complexity if you have to blend or match. Still, I can stare at any of the three colors I listed all day, they’ve just got so much character and really add to the styling. Really don’t know of any current Mazda colors I dislike beyond the basic black metallic, and they keep adding new ones that are neat like Aero Gray and Artisan Red. Heck, even Zircon Sand looks decent on everything that isn’t a Miata.
Wish my 3 was polymetal grey, but you’ve all heard that story in Discord already. White’s about the most boring color you can get, but had to pick between paint color and 2.5t AWD in white or NA FWD in PMG since I didn’t get the 2.5t AWD in PMG.
Is this car in production? because I swear I saw one this morning. It was dark and I though “something is weird about that” Thought it was Soul Red, but it was a Toyota. I thought it looked weird because of the reflective quality
Yeah, but no amount of Soul Red will make the Corolla an interesting or stylish design.
This.
Yeah, the CX-50 with the Toyota hybrid system seems to make it the easy pick for a smaller crossover in Soul Red unless pricing is way off.
That orange on the Bimmer looks really cool. Looks like “Hemi Orange”.
The color news is really great, as the CUV market would benefit from it, but I feel like I’m missing the half of the story where Mazda reveals what they’re doing with the Toyota hybrid system. Very much looking forward to seeing what the folks at Mazda can do with it.
There’s no revealing needed; as mentioned it’s used in the CX-50 Hybrid. And not the first time Mazda has had Toyota hybrid tech as the old Tribute Hybrid, by way of being a rebadged Ford Escape, was using the eCVT made by Aisin, Toyota’s powertrain subsidiary.
Ah, I missed that right at the beginning. Still hoping for more, since Mazda has a way of making vehicles that are more exciting than Toyota.
The 2025 Mazda CX-50 Hybrid Borrowed The Toyota RAV4s’ Heart To Get 38 MPG, But That Brought Big Compromises – The Autopian
Hopefully the crystal is better than the OG soul red, my 2015 soul red paint was so thin and chipped far too easily.
100% agree. I have Soul Red Metallic on my 2017 Mazda6 and it is the weakest paint I have ever seen. If you look at it sideways, some will flake off. Maybe it’s meant to split my ire between the paint, the ghost touch infotainment screen, and the clear coat on the dark tinted wheels that decided to flee for no apparent reason.
I didn’t know this was a problem. I had a 2014 6 in Soul Red, and it never gave me any issues. Such a beautiful color in the sun.
Previous Mazda service writer here – the wheel issue was actually one known by Mazda for what I’m assuming is a bad batch of wheels in paint finish. There was a service bulletin #02-003/18 to address it, and the cars had them replaced under warranty, as long as the customer brought the car in to the dealer. I remember catching the issue on a few customer cars early on in the paint failure and ordering wheels for them.
Nope. If you get an SRC Miata, your first stop when you leave the dealership should be a PPF installation.
Seems like an even trade to me.
In other paint news, Mazda is offering a lovely green color on the non-Meridian and non-hybrid CX-50s for 2025, and I suspect it’s a Toyota color (looks similar to the green on the Sienna).
It’s making it that much harder to resist buying one.
There’s a serious argument I would like to have with Toyota (and now Mazda) on account of the fact that their most “Green” cars, their Hybrids, don’t get the literal Green. We wanted the Green but settled for the Red (which now, as it turns out, is Mazda’s very own SRC lol)
That decision will have to be explained to me very, very slowly and I still won’t agree with the logic
Yay! The best paint color is spreading to new manufacturers! Now if they put it on the sporty corolla…
It is indeed a great color.
However you definitely don’t want to scratch it, as it’s relatively delicate. Not as thin and crummy as Honda and Subaru’s paints, but it’s one where you want to park away from any situation that might lead to door dings, and especially don’t drive through areas where branches can and will gouge the paint. We had to repaint my mom’s CX-5’s driver’s door after the neighbors of their shared alleyway didn’t trim their bushes and they dug into the door as she was trying to maneuver around them.
I’ve heard it’s not necessarily the fragility that’s the problem, but the complexity of the transluscent layer that makes paint matching a nightmare. I’ve heard several counts of ND owners with SRC cars get them totaled due to the paint cost, while any other Mazda color would have been fixed. It really is an incredible color.
Paint matching is difficult, yes. We used the factory touch-up kit and it took care of the scratches, but they looked so much like scars that it just didn’t suit the newness of the car. Hence the repaint. The shop did a good job but it definitely took them a while.
Are you referring to the GR Corolla? They already have a different red metallic (Supersonic Red) that is offered, and actually looks quite good. The only catch is that red ones are pretty rare in the scope of an already rare car.