Return of the Mazda RX-7?
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If anyone can create a worthy successor to the original sports car that inspired a cult following, Maeda can. He designed the RX-8, and his father designed the first RX-7.
So you could say that sports cars are in his blood and he is adept in the ways of "Zoom-zoom."
"I do have a strong yearning to revive the RX-7 during my tenure," Maeda is quoted as saying in a recent Automotive News article. "But in order for that to happen, we need the U.S. economy to come back, first and foremost."
Maeda, 50, races MX-5 Miatas and also owns a race-spec Lotus Elise. He has a lead foot that got his license revoked twice when he was young and also earned him the nickname "Speedy."
"He got this name while on assignment in the California studio," says former Mazda designer Laurens van den Acker, who is now Renault's top designer. Maeda worked at Mazda's California studio from 1987 to 1991.
Regardless of what a new RX-7 designed by Maeda would look like, you can be sure that it won't resemble his father's sports car. The son's sensibilities are at odds with the father's, which favored form over function and drew inspiration from Germany's austere Bauhaus movement.
"I am more emotional," Maeda says.
"We hardly speak about design. Because we respect each other so much, we know that if we start debating design, it will only end ugly. So we deliberately avoid the topic."
Maeda's father, Matasaburo Maeda, 77, worked at Mazda from 1962 to 1992. The simple wedge shape of the first-generation RX-7, which was produced from 1979 through 1985, illustrates his conservative nature (see photo). The second and third generations of the RX-7 smoothed the original's edges into curves.
Ikuo Maeda hopes to put his own imprint on Mazda design. Models like the new Mazda5, which will be rolling out soon, express the company's Nagare ("flow") aesthetic developed under van den Acker's guidance.
But Ikuo Maeda's own influence is already evident across Mazda's new lineup. The bulging front fenders found on most models have their roots in his RX-8 design, where they first appeared.
Source: Automotive News
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