By Steven Symes 
An 80-year-old Japanese grandmother recently sold her beloved RX-7 to Mazda after surrendering her driver’s license. She had the sports car since it was new a quarter century ago, obviously taking impeccable care of it until the final decision was made to put it in the best hands possible.
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That woman, Naoko Nishimoto, lives in Nagasaki and said she learned what a joy driving was early in life. However, she attained her driver’s license at the age of 21, purchasing her first vehicle that same year.
What Westerners might not understand is that at the time women rarely drove in Japan. While by US standards she got her license late, she was a standout for getting it at all. Nishimoto had to fight her parents just to have such a privilege.
While she owned many cars throughout her life, the final one, her Mazda RX-7, is special. Before she purchased it, Nagasaki was struggling to figure out what vehicle to buy as her current one was old and needed to be replaced.
An unlikely source was inspiration. She was watching Initial D, a popular anime series, with her son. In that show, there’s an RX-7 FD and she fell in love with the way it looked. However, upon driving the rotary-powered ride, she had many more reasons to enjoy it.
Even more amazing, she chose to get a model with the stick shift. That’s right, the grandmother handles the manual transmission with glee, something so many youth today sadly forgo.
However, as she turned 78, Nagasaki realized she could either keep driving and let someone else make the decision of when she no longer could, or she could voluntarily surrender her driver’s license when she hit 80.
The big question was what to do with her beloved RX-7. She wanted the sports car to go to someone who would love and cherish it, and who better than Mazda itself?
After she sold the vehicle, the automaker put it through a thorough refurbishment. Now it serves as a publicity vehicle, documenting a time when Mazda made one of the most exciting road cars on the market.
Images via Mazda