With the establishment of Mazda North American Operations (MNAO), Mazda Group operations in the United States have become increasingly dominated by the Ford style. However, there is one operation which Mazda still leads: the MNAO Design Development Center (in Irvine, California), which gave birth to the styling of the Miata (known as the Roadster in Japan) .
"I wanted to achieve simplicity of exterior styling, and in fact there was no discrepancy between the car's outside appearance and its performance," says Tom Matano, 50, Executive Designer of the Miata, heading a team of six staff members. Matano is Japanese, who has permanent residence in the US, was originally from Nagasaki Prefecture, but has been in charge of designing Mazda models in the United States since 1983.
The Miata is the car which pioneered the market for one-ton class lightweight open two-seater sports cars. Making its debut in 1989, it was fully remodeled this January. With cumulative sales of 430,000 units, it has achieved the world record for this class. It strongly influenced auto makers all over the world, inspiring BMW of Germany, Fiat of Italy and others, to follow suit.
"This is a car nobody dislikes," Mr. Matano explained, showing his confidence of his team's ability to develop cars. Even after 20% of Mazda's American employees were laid off and a quarter of the personnel on loan from Mazda were sent back to Japan, as a part of downsizing following the establishment of MNAO, there have been no cut-backs in the 50-strong development staff. Ford Vice-Chairman Wayne Booker (63) rates the model highly. "It's a distinctively Mazda car." And for its part, Mazda wants to maintain its current three-pronged R&D system with operations spread between Japan, the US and Europe.
But the Ford style is creeping into the development of the Miata too, in the form of a Ford method called the "clinic", in which the results of market research are reflected in the development of new models. Once a year, customers' preferences for types of cars and colors are surveyed on both the East and the West Coasts of the United States to determine the body color and the color and patterns of seats, etc. In Japan, the main color of the second-generation Roadster is orange, but the 'clinic' revealed that Americans don't like the color.
Accordingly, silver was chosen as the main color for the Miata. Yutaka Hirose, 58, MNAO Vice President in charge of development, acknowledges the effectiveness of the 'clinic': "It's safer to use market data when it comes to taste for colors and the like." At the Mazda Head Office, he was in charge of development of the Mazda 626 (the Cronos in Japan), the colors and features of which turned out not to suit American tastes. Hirose thus speaks from bitter experience.
But he doesn't hide a dissenting view: "It's true Ford's approach is effective in development of sedans like the Mazda 626, with a wide customer base. But it doesn't seem appropriate for a unique car like the Miata." He thinks it is impossible to create a car novel enough to generate a new market for itself, if development is based solely on market data. This is a sentiment shared by many Mazda engineers.
Mazda and Ford are planning to develop common platforms, which include components such as the engine and the suspension, which will be used in the year 2000 or soon after. The aim is to reduce costs for development, production and parts procurement. On the flip side, however, there is great concern among Mazda personnel that the company's identity may suffer from such a process. Mazda staff at MNAO believe it will make design even more important. The strategy they have in mind is to retain Mazda originality in the body design even when the platform is shared with Ford.
Working with skill to combine Ford's data-oriented approach and Mazda's ability to develop unique cars is the way to establish a new identity for Mazda. "Mazda can not survive only by producing average cars. We should create ever more unique cars," said Hirose.
