“People of my generation think cars are simply a tool for transportation,” Mukumoto, now 26, said in an interview in Wako City, Japan. “I wanted them to say — hmm, this car is different,” he said. “We have made a car that will turn heads.”
Mukumoto became a fan of Honda after reading a comic book in primary school about Soichiro. He joined the company at 19 after studying machinery at a vocational high school in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan.
Mountain Roads
A car aficionado who drives a Honda S2000 open-top sportscar to work, Mukumoto likes to zip through the mountain roads of Tochigi, an area north of Tokyo that’s famous for its Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. “I feel like I can have conversations with the car driving there,” he said.