The sad news of Mr Hiromu Naruso's death makes me think we are getting out of geniuses in todays car R&D

There are very few names in the Japanese Car industry that really make the R&D departments produce interesting products.

Hiromu Naruso was on of those few. He was Toyota's Master Driver. The Man responsible for Toyota's best products of all times: The 2000Gt, The AE86, The Celica, The MR2, The Supra, The Altezza ... and evidently the LFA.
Within some of it's numerous qualities was the being able to push the R&D into creating passionate products that the customer thought to be "tasty" and that he would never "try to stop tasting a bit more".

With the death of Naruso, the Japanese car industry looses one of it's drivers (as in someone driving the big R&D department and steering it way form the hybrid prius route).

This creates a similar (extremely sad) feeling in me as the death of Senna did. Senna was very involved into R&D of both Honda's racing and production cars.

There is one of those geniuses left, but seams to me that the company that he's worked all he's life for, has lost it's essence. I'm Talking of Shigeru Euhara. The man behind the NSX (together with Senna) and the Honda S2000. Guess that if Honda continues it's hybrid crap madness, Shigeru should apply for a job at Toyota and continue Hiromu's legacy... at least there they do produce cars and not just prius.