Mugen-Power In Europe
17.January, 2007 @10:01 Tech News
M-TEC Company Limited of Japan reveals the formation of MUGEN Euro Company Limited in the UK and the establishment later in 2007 of a MUGEN-POWER racing and high performance engine facility in the UK’s ‘Motorsports Valley’. The new company has been set up for the express purpose of R&D, manufacturing and maintenance of advanced technology powertrains, and has selected this area of the UK due to its abundance of high quality specialist suppliers, skilled and experienced engineering workforce, and excellent transport network.
MUGEN – meaning “Unlimited” – engines have famously powered hundreds of race and championship winners since the company’s formation in 1973. Many of these have been with Honda products and currently include NSX Super GT (Japan’s most prestigious race series), F Nippon, F3 and Integra one-make series. Outside of Japan, the Honda 2.0 litre-based F3 engines developed by MUGEN have been consistently successful, names such as Mika Häkkinen and Rubens Barrichello springing to mind as F1 drivers who won F3 championships with MUGEN-POWER.
MUGEN also designs and develops race engines under its own brand name, most prominent of these at present being the MF458S LMP1 unit with which a yet-to-be- revealed top team/driver combination intends to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours and in the Le Mans Series. From 1992 to 1999, while Honda took a sabbatical from Grand Prix racing, MUGEN supplied its own-prepared and developed F1 engines to the Footwork, Lotus, Ligier, Prost and Jordan teams, scoring 4 wins (Olivier Panis: Monaco 1996; Damon Hill: Spa-Francorchamps 1998; Heinz-Harald Frentzen: Magny Cours & Monza 1999).
With the expansion of MUGEN’s European programmes, and the increasing popularity of Honda products in the growing EC, M-TEC has decided the time is right to support these with a UK-based entity under the name of MUGEN-Euro. Suitable premises are currently under negotiation and the company will be headed by Mr Satoshi Katsumata, Managing Director of M-TEC, as President and Mr Hiroki Toyoda as Vice-President in charge of day-to-day operations. Both are extremely experienced in motorsport and in powertrain design and development, and will be supported by a workforce recruited locally whenever possible. The directors of M-TEC are excited at the establishment of MUGEN Euro as an increased presence in European motorsport, and particularly in Great Britain which has long played such a leading role in the global motor racing industry.
