Word: mazda
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...came special think tanks run by America's Big Three. So far, an estimated two dozen production-model cars have been shaped by the new California design colony, including, of course, the delicious, almost perfect, and instantly successful Miata, designed by four young Americans (and a Japanese) working for Mazda in Orange County. Now the influx has accelerated, and even the Germans have deigned to establish Southern California design studios -- Mercedes last year, Audi last spring and, just last month...
...most of those in Southern California. If you're to succeed in the U.S., you must sell in Southern California. And to do that, observes Peter Fischer, a marketing vice president at Volkswagen, "you have to see, feel, smell what these customers want." Says Mark Jordan, who was Mazda's chief designer on the Miata: "If you can excite the people in California, the rest of the country will take care of itself." The world's car companies have been drawn to L.A. by the same giddy promise -- a fresh start, anything goes -- that has always pulled in immigrants. Detroit...
...Camarillo, train students like Michael Ma, 26, a Vietnamese refugee who graduated this August and went directly to work for the Mercedes studio in Irvine. Ten of the 18 Southern California auto-design studios are run by Art Center alumni, and their staffs are dominated by fellow graduates, including Mazda's Mark Jordan...
...nation of workaholics, however, has found that taking it easy is no easy task. It requires practice, effort and, like most things in Japan, plenty of organization. At Mazda Motors, employees last spring were busy working out - their holiday plans. In an effort to get them to take time off, Mazda holds an annual "Dream Vacation Contest." Participants describe their ideal getaway, and the winners have their dreams come true at company expense. Last year's winner was Ryuzo Yamaguchi, a training manager, who wanted to enter an international ballroom-dance contest in Britain. With a $3,500 subsidy from...
Retired auto executives say the darnedest things. In his forthcoming book, A Better Idea, former Ford chief DONALD PETERSEN writes that his company's quality improvements during the '80s failed to put the automaker ahead of the Japanese. "Right now, I rate Toyota the best, followed by Honda, and Mazda does a great...