LAURENS VAN DEN ACKER TO LEAD MAZDA DESIGN

Hiroshima, Japan --- May, 2006 Laurens van den Acker has been appointed General Manager of the Design Division of Mazda Motor Corporation, effective, April 28, 2006. As head of the design division, he will lead a consolidated Mazda design team responsible for the overall design and styling of all Mazda global products. He will report to Seita Kanai, Senior Managing Executive Officer in charge of R&D. Van den Acker is currently located at the company’s world headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan.

Prior to joining Mazda, van den Acker was the Chief Designer, Strategic Design, at Ford Motor Company’s design offices in Dearborn, Michigan.

From 1998-2005, he held several prominent design positions at Ford, among them chief designer of the Brand Imaging Group in Irvine, California and, more recently, chief designer for the Ford Escape platform.

Notable cars which van den Acker has worked on, have been the Ford Bronco, Ford 427, Model U and Ford 24/7 concept vehicles, as well as the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner production cars.

Before to joining Ford , van den Acker also worked for Volvo, SHR Perceptual Management and Audi AG. He began his career as a lead designer at Design System srl in Turin, Italy, in 1990.

Mr. van den Acker graduated from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1990 with a Master of Engineering degree from the Faculty of Industrial Design. He is fluent in Dutch, German, English and Italian.