MILAN – It is a story made up of encounters, cars and courageous visions of the future, the one that Mazda summarized in the docufilm ‘The shape of time’. In the plot of the feature film, signed by the direction of Dario Acocella, there is the meeting of Italian design with the Japanese care of the product, but also that between the desire to innovate and experiment with that of leaving a mark in the lives of millions of people. . The result of these meetings, among others, is a pair of cars united by the initials MX, namely the MX-81, a futuristic concept car created by Bertone in 1981, with the MX-30, the brand’s first production electric car.
‘The shape of time. Stories and ties between Italy and Japan ‘of the Mazda world
And it is precisely from the desire to rediscover the history of the futuristic MX-81 that the film and research project was born. That ideal bridge built between Italy and Japan has distant origins, in 1960, with the arrival in Italy of Hideyuki Miyakawa, and with his meeting at the Turin Motor Show with Giorgetto Giugiaro, who at the time, in his early twenties, he is already head of Bertone design. Then the two could not have known that this would be the first step of a long journey. At the Turin show, Miyakawa also meets a young woman, Maria Luisa ‘Marisa’ Bassano, who works as an interpreter from Japanese and is passionate about cars, with whom he falls in love. Miyakawa is “adopted” by the Bassano family, so much so that he is welcomed into the house even when Marisa leaves for a study trip, which she had previously organized, to Hiroshima. In 1961 Miyakawa went to visit her and, thanks to the personal acquaintances of the family who is hosting the girl, he met Tsuneji Matsuda, president of Mazda and son of the founder Jujiro. The two begin to talk about the importance of design for the Japanese auto industry, setting the stage for Miyakawa’s influence on the company.
Meanwhile Hideyuki and Marisa get engaged, only to get married the following year. It does not take long to return to Turin, for emotional reasons but also because at the time it was the headquarters of the first three Italian body shops: Bertone, Ghia and Pininfarina.
Together, the pair begin to mediate between those design studios and Japanese carmakers. That’s exactly what Mazda, looking for ways to distinguish its upcoming passenger cars, is looking for. Matsuda sends a company designer to Italy, and the first collaboration between Mazda and Bertone gives birth in 1963 to the Mazda Familia, a compact family car. The following year follows the sedan version and, in 1965, a coupe completes the series.
Although it is far from being an extreme sports car, its design clearly showcases the Bertone style, shaped by a young Giorgetto Giugiaro. Even after Giugiaro moved to work for Ghia, the collaboration between Mazda and Bertone did not stop, so much so that in 1981 it led to the MX-81 project. A new acronym is inaugurated, MX (Mazda eXperimental), aimed at cars that represent a challenge to create and deliver new values without being limited by conventions.
The MX-81 is presented at the Tokyo Motor Show and is immortalized in the same year as a famous photo shoot set in Milan, in Piazza Duomo, to illustrate the ongoing dialogue between Japanese technology and Italian style. When Ikuo Maeda, Mazda’s head of design, takes on the responsibility of rethinking and unifying the brand’s design in 2010, the past collaboration with Bertone and Giugiaro is at the forefront of his reflections. “Personally I love Italian cars – commented Maeda – and I have owned many of them. Italy is the best country to understand how to make a beautiful car. They integrate with the Italian landscape and are beautiful when they are in motion. Just what we seek in Mazda with the Kodo design “. Mazda’s centenary and the launch of the new MX-30 have therefore become occasions, not without the recovery and restoration of the MX-81 which, unlike many other prototypes that are disposed of once the exhibition phase was completed, had been stored for years in the warehouse of the Mazda headquarters in the Fuchizaki district. A restoration that was completed in Italy, right in Turin, where it all started.
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