The car-loving comedy duo "Ogiyahagi" explores the "car history" of their guests in "Ogiyahagi's Car History: NO CAR, NO LIFE!" (BS Nippon Television, Saturdays at 9 PM). On the April 18th broadcast, legendary engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno, who was the development manager for the Nissan GT-R, will be the guest.
Mr. Mizuno joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in 1972. He was involved in the creation of popular cars such as the Sunny, Silvia, and Skyline. At the same time, he also participated in races as the team manager and chief engineer, making a name for himself in races both domestically and internationally.
Mizuno decided to "create a factory-produced, commercially available car that can beat a full-carbon racing car" in 1995, the year he competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He began formulating the concept the very day the race ended, and full-scale development started in 2004.
Mizuno revealed that the initial core team developing the GT-R consisted of 50 people, less than half the usual number, and that the development costs were also less than half the usual amount. Recalling that time, Mizuno said, "We were working to create something new that didn't exist in the world, so we didn't have any work procedures, organization, or technology." The secret to achieving low-priced sales and Mizuno's amazing skills in developing the car in just three years will also be revealed.
During the development phase, Nissan was in a busy period, and Mizuno was struggling to secure engineers' schedules, even though he wanted to move the development forward. In this situation, the saviors who appeared were engineers from an unexpected industry; Mizuno hired these retired engineers, who ended up making up 80% of the development team.
When Hiroaki Ogi heard that "these were people who had never even seen a passenger car before," he asked a direct question: "Are those engineers actually useful?" Ogi was completely convinced by Mizuno's answer, which could be described as "that being one of the factors in their success."
