Kozo Watanabe

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).

History Early days As a boy, he was a car enthusiast 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.

Joining Nissan 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.

Itō instructed Watanabe and allowed him to design some parts of C10 Skyline GT-R's suspension.

One day, Watanabe said to Sakurai that he would like to design a racing car. Sakurai said, "Come on. No way. You must learn about the production cars first. It's impossible for you to design a racing car now."

He retired from NISMO in 2006.

Incidentally, the fifth generation C210 Skyline is the only Skyline which he was not involved in until he being assigned as the Executive Director of NISMO in 1999.