The car community is mourning the loss of Tom Matano, the Japanese designer whose work with Mazda spawned two of the greatest looking sports cars of the 1990s.
Often referred to as ‘The Father of the Miata’ (the North American name for the MX-5, which was also called the Roadster in Japan), Matano penned the original ‘NA’ generation model, as well as its later ‘NB’ follow-up, both of which spurred on a roadster renaissance.
Matano was Mazda’s head of US research and development at the time of the models’ respective launches, running the brand’s Californian design studio.
The NB MX-5’s design took inspiration from an automotive artwork penned with Matano’s help, the famed ‘FD’ Mazda RX-7, the last of the brand’s two-door rotary-powered sports cars.
Having started as a design proposal by Wu-huang Chin who worked in the California studio underneath Matano, the FD RX-7 was finalised by Mazda’s global design chief, Yoichi Sato.
His team was also responsible for the NA-based M Coupe, an MX-5 with a fixed roof that almost made it into production as a pint-sized, piston-powered replacement to the RX-7.
While Mazda expected at the time that a coupe could account for almost half of the MX-5’s sales in its home market, it never truly made it into production as an NA. Late in the NB’s production run however there was a Roadster Coupé, limited to just 179 examples for Japan.
Prior to working for Mazda, Matano had worked for General Motors, first in Detroit and then reportedly briefly for Holden in Australia, before he departed for BMW.
Latterly, Matano was a supporter of Mazda MX-5/Miata owners clubs in California, and held the position of Executive Director of the Academy of Art University’s School of Industrial Design since 2002. He relinquished this role to become its Director Emeritus in January.
Vale, Tom Matano.
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