Takao Kijima, a former engineer at Mazda who was involved in the development of sports cars such as the Roadster and RX-7, will be a guest on the talk variety show "Ogiyahagi's My Car History NO CAR, NO LIFE!" (BS Nippon TV), which will be broadcast from 9:00 pm on May 11th. He will talk about his life as an engineer, his passion and love for machines, his car history, and behind-the-scenes stories from the Le Mans 24 Hours Race.
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Kishima joined Mazda at the age of 18 in 1967 and has been involved in car design and development for over 40 years. When he first joined the company he was in charge of commercial vehicle design and development, but a turning point came when he joined the development team for the Savanna RX-7, which was released in 1978. His talent blossomed in the sports car division, to the point where his superiors competed for him.
In 1991, Mazda's 787B became the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans. It is said that Kijima had tweaked the car's settings, which had not worked out well. This was a great achievement, but later, a shocking truth came to light. He tells the story of what happened afterwards.