A bond comes from afar

Form and time What unites Japanese designers and auto executives with legendary Italian automakers? It is an unusual question that has such an amazing and appealing answer that it has given life to a documentary film entitledThe shape of time“. Video (Below) At a conference presented by Roberto Petrantonio, Claudio di Benedetto and Erika Giandomenico of Mazda Italia. It all starts from the image of the prototype in Milan’s cathedral square Mazda MX-81, Designed by Marc Deschamps, design director at the time in Burton. This prototype was shown at Mazda Mechanics, at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1981 He was the first to get the initials “MX”. The Milanese photo aroused the curiosity of Mazda Italia employees so much that Claudio Di Benedetto, Director of Marketing and PR for Japanese Home, wrote to Nobuhiro Yamamoto, Mazda engineer, father of the famous MX-5. Yamamoto researched and found that the MX-81, contrary to custom, has not been canceled. And so Mazda Italia decided to take it back to recreate the photograph in front of Milan Cathedral alongside the ‘great-granddaughter’ Mazda MX 30. The restoration was entrusted to the Superstile of Moncalieri and the coordinator of the work was Flavio Gallizio, who belonged to the legendary Bertone.

By motorcycle from Japan – The docufilm also tells how, in the 1960s, the collaboration was between Giorgetto Giugiaro (Then in Bertone) and Mazda. It was Hideyuki Miyakawa, a reporter for a design magazine, who met him at the Turin Motor Show Giorgetto Giugiaro He put him in contact with the Hiroshima Mason, later called Toyo Kogyo. He started a collaboration that gave life to some Japanese home models, such as Mazda Familia and Luce.

Deep link Also Eko Maeda, Director General of Design since 2009 Mazda, Proudly claims to be associated with Italian design. He was very young when he met Burton and Gugiaro and getting to know them stimulated him a lot. They were people who came from foreign countries (at that time Maeda never left his hometown Hiroshima) and thought: I would like to work with people like them, with style and creativity. The “Shape of Time” show continued in the wake of these memories also with the contribution of Sylvia Parovaldi, Director of Auto & Design magazine who unveiled the thread that unites Mazda, Italy and the design traditions in our country reached levels that can be defined as artistic and craftsmanship. These are ties that have a history of more than 60 years and still bear fruit today, so much so that on every new Mazda model there is a bit of Italian design.

Fate and people It is a story first and foremost of interpersonal relationships, begun almost by chance or perhaps guided by fate, which focus at its core on concern for the subject and excellence in craftsmanship, from design to production, which seemingly unite two peoples very far away. Also in attendance were Giorgetto Giugiaro, historical memory of those events and Italian design, Dario Aquocella, director of the documentary, Andrea Calbucci, who represents Lungta Film, video producer and also award-winning Padrenostro. The most prominent form of time I am Links between the Mazda MX-81 and the MX-30, Mazda’s first electric series. Their challenge is to create new values ​​without the boundaries of conventions, where momentum preserves the literal shapes of Kodo’s design, inspired by the movement of energy and harmonic lines that surround us. I think the MX-81 has retractable windshield wipers, swivel seats, and a rectangular steering wheel that frames a screen (cathode ray tube) that is actually capable of showing maps.