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Mar 12, 2015 21:29:39 GMT
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Last Edit: Mar 12, 2015 21:30:27 GMT by Deleted
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Colonelk
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,740
Club RR Member Number: 83
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Mar 13, 2015 12:39:25 GMT
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Sad to hear that  But 105! That is good going! |
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Mar 15, 2015 21:25:16 GMT
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This man made my life better than it would otherwise have been.
RIP
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s20
Part of things
Posts: 162
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This man made my life better than it would otherwise have been. I don't want to sound rude, but - in any practical sense - how? Yutaka Katayama wasn't - despite the fact that many of the obituaries have been mistakenly crediting him as one - an engineer, a stylist or a designer. He wasn't - despite the fact that he's been mistakenly described as such - Nissan Motor Co. USA's first president. He didn't single-handedly build Nissan's business in north America, wasn't the first staff member to arrive there and he didn't have any direct remit to spec cars especially for the north American market. He wasn't the first member of staff at Nissan to push for the company to take part in motorsports events and he wasn't one of the people tasked with doing so. He was a great man and a seminal figure in Nissan's history, but many of the things he has been credited with over the years have actually been the work of others. Most of the obituaries don't give him the credit for the very things that were his achievements. |
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Mar 16, 2015 21:13:39 GMT
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I'd be interested to know what is actual achievements are Alan. It is always sad the passing of seminal motoring figures. It would be great in this instance to take the chance to understand truly the man we are mourning.
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Carter
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,535
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Last Edit: Mar 17, 2015 8:21:44 GMT by Carter: Links and content added
'77 Chevy G20
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Carter
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,535
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'77 Chevy G20
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s20
Part of things
Posts: 162
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Mar 17, 2015 12:12:07 GMT
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I'd be interested to know what is actual achievements are Alan. It is always sad the passing of seminal motoring figures. It would be great in this instance to take the chance to understand truly the man we are mourning. The nissannews.com and nissan-global.com articles are not very accurate, but there are far worse out there. Many of the people who own 'Datsun' branded cars - and especially in the USA - truly believe that Katayama was responsible for creating cars. I see photos of S30-series Z cars and 510s posted on this thread as though Katayama was in some way directly responsible for their very existence. This - repeated all across the 'net with "Thanks Mr K!" comments and the like - reinforces the legend, but it's based on a misapprehension. It didn't help that - in a filmed documentary in the USA - Katayama said "I designed it" when referring to the 240Z. He didn't, and the truth is that he attached himself to the project when it was already well under way. There's a far bigger - and more complicated - story behind that if you really want to look into it, but for many people (up to and including Nissan's own press department...) it's easier to pin the credit on an agreeably benign and loveable face with a catchy nickname. All the more so if he's willing to autograph your glovebox door. I have to 'fess up here and admit that I met Katayama several times in Japan in connection with my interest in the S30-series Z. A man I admire greatly and certainly a man of his time, but I have to be honest and say that one of his faults in later life was to actually believe and reinforce the cult-of-personality type hype that attached itself to him after he retired. To put it in a nutshell, it would have been better if Katayama would have said "we, we, we" rather than "I, I, I." in a lot of the stories that he told. One of the things I find most disappointing about the whole 'Mr K.' phenomenon is that it tends to obscure the fine work of others. I admire the designers, stylists and engineers - even the guys on the 'shop floor who put these cars together - and want to hear their stories. The vaunting of Katayama has tended to cast a very large shadow, and to a very great extent the people who have deserved a lot of the praise and admiration heaped on Katayama over the years have been the people in that shadow. In the case of the S30-series Z, I've been lucky enough to meet a few of those designers, stylists and engineers and have talked with them about the whole process. It puts things in perspective. One of the other frustrations is that the whole 'Mr K' phenomenon forces us to view the history of Nissan (and- by extension - the Japanese nation itself) in the latter half of the Twentieth Century through the prism of the USA. It's as though Nissan's whole existence was geared toward supplying the USA with what it wanted, and cheaply. It's almost as though the Japanese market didn't exist, and that the Japanese people themselves didn't have any ambitions, any hopes and dreams of their own. And yet during the 1950s/60s/70s and 80s - and especially during the 1965 to 1975 period that Katayama was President of NMC-USA - what was Nissan's biggest single market in terms of sales volume and turnover ? What was its most important single market? Of course it was the Japanese domestic market itself. It's wise to keep that in mind when discussing anything to do with Nissan/Datsun history. Yutaka Katayama came from a privileged background, and attended an elite university from which he graduated with an education in economics. He joined the fledgling Nissan Motor Co. as it was owned by a family relative, and was tasked with sales promotion activities. He had what we might diplomatically call a 'good' war - unlike some of his colleagues - and picked up pretty much where he left off, doing well in the advertising and sales area until he got involved in anti-union company politics. He painted his posting to the USA as a form of punishment, but in reality it was a blessing in disguise and was the making of the man and the legend. I could go on, but I've probably already written enough to get me burned at the stake as some kind of seditionary. If you're really interested in Nissan/Datsun (and Prince) history, the Japanese motor industry and/or the wider topic of Japan in the 20th Century, then I urge you simply to dig deeper. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of individuals who had a very real hand in creating the cars we love, and we should turn the spotlight on them occasionally. At the very least, let's be more curious...yes? |
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Carter
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,535
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Mar 17, 2015 15:54:20 GMT
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Well put, and what you say has made me more curious, it's always fascinating to get the different perspectives on these subjects. I like history, and I like to find out about the unsung 'heroes' and the 'little people'.
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'77 Chevy G20
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