Kozo Watanabe (engineer)
| Kōzō Watanabe 渡邉 衡三 |
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|---|---|
Kozo Watanabe at the Prince & Skyline Museum in Okaya, Nagano on Oct. 13, 2013.
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| Born |
24 September 1942 Osaka Prefecture |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Education | Tokyo University |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Mechanical engineering |
| Significant design |
Nissan Skyline (R33) Nissan Skyline (R34) |
Kōzō Watanabe (渡邉 衡三 Watanabe Kōzō?, born 1942) is a Japanese automotive engineer who was responsible for the development of the ninth generation Nissan Skyline (R33) and the tenth generation Nissan Skyline (R34).
As a boy he was a car maniac who loved motor sports. He saw the Prince cars being completely defeated at the 1st Japanese Grand Prix held at Suzuka Circuit in 1963.
In March 1967, one month before he joined Nissan, he went to Europe to watch a Formula 1 race.
He wanted to join Brabham or another F1 car manufacturer. In Japan, he wanted to join the Prince Motor Company which produced the R380 racing car.
He joined Nissan in April 1967 and was assigned to the Prince Division, which had recently been merged into Nissan in August 1966, located in Ogikubo, Tokyo, as he hoped. The main building was the former Nakajima Aircraft Company's Tokyo Plant facility.
He was assigned to Design Group No. 2 of the Design Department No. 1 headed by two managers. One of them was Shinichiro Sakurai, the other was Ushio Fuyuki. One of Sakurai's subordinates Naganori Itō held direct responsibility over Watanabe. Itō who would later take over Sakurai's responsibilities.
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