Error from Albrecht, the first one ever I think!
*ERROR CODE 54: TEA RESERVOIR LOW*
uk66fastback said:
So all this Mr K-This, Mr K-That mainly US stuff, is simply legend/fantasy?
Lets not go too far the other way with the critique. Yutaka Katayama was a seminal figure for Nissan in the USA, and a very interesting man in his own right. However, he was lucky enough to have a fairly charmed early life (including managing to be excused military service) and was related to one of Nissan's founding families, making him almost un-sackable. His education was in economics and business studies and his early career at Nissan was in the advertising field. He was not - as has been claimed - any sort of engineer or designer. Katayama was fairly rare amongst Japanese company staff in being rather vocal and pushy, making use of his elite status to get what he wanted and being fairly political (including strike-breaking and anti-union lobbying), which rubbed a few people up the wrong way. Katayama said he was "
banished" to the USA as some kind of punishment and "
was expected to fail", but this doesn't stand up to too much scrutiny. First of all, Nissan had already started investing in the setting up of a sales network in the USA (in partnership with Marubeni) before Katayama pitched up there and some of his contemporaries - including the very important figure of Soichi Kawazoe - had been doing some very important ground work before him. Why would Nissan want to F all that up? The truth is that Katayama was pretty much the ideal man at the ideal time, perfectly suited to what he was sent to do and blessed to enjoy a golden time for Japanese exports to Baby Booming USA.
What grates for me is the over-stating of Katayama's role in product planning, engineering, styling and motor sports. It's almost as though nobody could imagine that Japan itself had dreams and aspirations, as though Japan was always going to be some kind of third world nation stuck in the 1930s. All this "made for the USA" stuff, starting with the 510 Bluebird and then being applied to the S30-series Z, ignores the fact that the Japanese people wanted something new as well. Do people honestly believe that the 41o and 411 Bluebirds would never be replaced with something newer, something better? That the SP/SR Roadsters would be the last of Nissan's sports cars and there would be a 2-seater GT-sized gap in Nissan's range? Was Katayama responsible for changing this? Of course not. People just don't look at the bigger picture.
So, great man. But shining the spotlight solely on Katayama leaves a cast of many, many other people in the shadow it casts.