Remembering Tsutomu “Tom” Matano, 1947-2025 You Should Know

We wanted to take a moment to celebrate the accomplishments of Tsutomu “Tom” Matano, often called the “Father of the Miata,” who passed away on September 22 at the age of 77. Matano was a champion of “empathetic design”—the idea that objects should communicate how they want to be used with their design—and he shaped Mazda’s design philosophy during what could be considered the most important period in the company’s history. Above all, he was remembered for his cheerful disposition and boundless enthusiasm for car culture and its people.

After graduating in engineering from Seikei University, Matano redirected his ambitions toward automotive design, enrolling at the ArtCenter (then Art Center) College of Design in 1970. By 1974, his final student project earned him a spot with GM in Detroit, Michigan, in the Advanced Oldsmobile studio. He later transferred to GM Holden in Australia during the 1970s energy crisis, and by the early 1980s had moved to BMW, where he was assigned to the E36 3-Series project.

Image: Hagerty

Bob Hall later tapped Matano to lead Mazda’s new North American design center, where he even designed the R&D building in which it was housed in Irvine, California. Of course, he is best known for spearheading the design of one of the the greatest and most ubiquitous enthusiast cars of all time—the Mazda Miata. His anthropological approach to understanding American car culture, coupled with his passion for the automobile, helped his vision win out over two rival designs from Mazda’s Tokyo Studio. In the end, his Miata was the answer.

Image: Motor1

Matano also penned the gorgeous FD RX-7—a car whose lines have never seemed to age. According to him, the 275 GTB had already stood the test of time—so he drew inspiration from its curves and proportions, creating an original design with many elements that also referenced the Miata.

After a design career spanning almost three decades, Matano became an educator at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, where he mentored new generations of aspiring designers. His love and passion for cars and the Miata enthusiast community knew no bounds, as the legion of enthusiasts who met him along the way can attest.

We honor Matano’s career and legacy by reposting this interview with the late Jean Jennings at the New York Auto Show in 2014, where he sums up the philosophy that he used as a measure for his designs:

“This is the one I always said the best measure: is when you take a car home for the first night before you go to bed, if you make people say good night, peek into the garage and say good night, that’s a communication we wanted to have with the design.”

Eulogies from our Hearst Autos colleagues at Car and Driver, MotorTrend, and Autoweek can be read by clicking the respective links.