Naoko Nishimoto vowed to give up driving when she reached the age of 80. That meant finding a new home for her treasured Mazda RX-7, which she ordered new 25 years ago.
Until then Nishimoto had been a Toyota fan, but was inspired to opt for the rotary rival after watching the anime series Initial D with her son. Off she went to her local Mazda dealership and drove away in an RX-7 Type RB S.
Over the next two and a half decades she drove almost 50,000 miles in the car, which is far more than she initially anticipated. “At first, I thought that if it started to go wrong after about 10 years, I could just switch to a new RX-7, but when I heard that production was ending and I could no longer switch to a new car, it became even more important to me,” Nishimoto told CarWatch Japan.
As she approached her 80th birthday Nishimoto was interviewed by NBC Nagasaki Broadcasting where she explained she wanted to find a new home for the car. The video was viewed more than 800,000 times and she received over 400 emails responses.
Among them was a note from Mazda’s Public Relations department. “It was an email filled with passion and sincerity, and it seemed to shine to me,” Nishimoto added. She agreed to return the RX-7 to the Nagasaki dealership where she bought it, from where it would be sent back to the Hiroshima factory where it was built.
Mazda President and CEO Masahiro Moro has vowed to look after the RX-7. “This was a moving reminder that you see a car not just as a means of transportation, but as an important partner in life. It was also the first model for which I was responsible for marketing after joining Mazda, so it is a car that holds very special memories for me. We will treasure this car, along with stories of the days when you lived a happy, energetic and vibrant life, drawing vitality from the power of cars.”
