{"id":784002,"date":"2026-07-07T03:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784002\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:58:10","slug":"mazda-rx-7-wins-an-award-35-years-after-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784002\/","title":{"rendered":"Mazda RX-7 wins an award 35 years after launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mmb-articles-rx7-documentary-09.jpg\" alt=\"Mazda RX-7 wins an award 35 years after launch\" class=\"gh-post-page__image\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Mazda RX-7 may be a favourite in the modified car community, but the story of one owned by a Japanese pensioner has gone on to win an award.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Mazda released a short, 10-minute documentary titled \u201cGoodbye RX-7: Saying farewell to a dear friend\u201d, tracing the final days of then-79-year-old Naoko Nishimoto owning her \u2018FD\u2019 RX-7.<\/p>\n<p>Purchased in 2000 when she was 55, Nishimoto daily-drove the RX-7 until she turned 80, at which point she elected to hand in her driver\u2019s licence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1747127841396.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The last three days of her owning the car were captured as a part of the documentary, which culminated in the RX-7 being given to the Kyushu Mazda Akasako Store, where it now serves as a promotional vehicle for the brand.<\/p>\n<p>Just over a year after its release, Mazda announced the short film won a Bronze Lion in the Entertainment Lions category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Cannes Lions) 2026, a celebration of the advertising industry.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, the award comes amid speculation that the RX-7 will be revived or we\u2019ll finally see a successor, understood to be based on the design of the Iconic SP Compact Sports Car concept from the 2023 Japan Mobility Show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mazda RX-7 may be a favourite in the modified car community, but the story of one owned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-784002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}