Yutaka katayama biography
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Yutaka Katayama, the Nissan executive behind the Datsun 240 Z, died this week at 105. A native of Japan, Katayama basically cracked the code on selling Asian cars in America. Decades after the man made his mark, his life holds stark, vibrant lessons regarding the automobile.
"The fun of driving cars is the same as riding a horse," Katayama said, late in life. "We need a car that is like riding on horseback. We are making robots. Robots don't like human control." Translation: Make cars people want to drive, and that feel like they’re meant to be driven, not ridden in.
Katayama joined Nissan in 1935 and started out working on publicity, then advertising. His style of leadership was distinctly divergent from the norm. The typical Japanese business style of the time, at least in the auto industry, was based on consensus, says Pete Brock, an automotive designer who raced Datsun cars in the 1970s. "You give them information, they have a closed meeting, and they call you back weeks later with a decision." Katayama was different. His "was very much an American style, and he was just amazing in his understanding of how Americans did business."
Katayama came to America in 1960 in a sort of corporate exile. Japanese executives of the time v
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Life and Times of Mr. K: Yutaka Katayama
Born in September 1909, in what is now Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Mr. K joined the company in 1935 and was assigned to the Administration Department, first handling publicity and then advertising.
He made one of the first color films of a Datsun on Japanese roads and later filmed motor sport races across the globe, raising the bar for decades of visual story telling ahead.
With a love of cars and a flare for promotion, he built the Datsun brand, Nissan's initial brand name in the U.S., from scratch.
He had first visited the U.S. as an assistant on a high-speed vessel carrying raw silk in 1927 while a student at Keio University.
In his storied career, he was team manager as two Datsun 210s were entered in a grueling rally circumnavigating the Australian continent. The subsequent victory instantly catapulted the brand into worldwide renown and set the stage for Datsun exports.
Notably, he put together the key concepts for the Z-car, contributing significantly to the birth of an exceptional sports car still revered by driving enthusiasts.
Retiring in 1977, he was later inducted into the American Automotive Hall of Fame in 1998 for ushering in a generation of vehicles that redefined the American car market, as well
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Yutaka Katayama
Japanese capitalist (1909–2015)
Yutaka Katayama (片山 豊, Katayama Yutaka, born Yutaka Asoh; 15 September 1909 – 19 February 2015), also leak out as Mr. K, was a Asian automotive be concerned who was employed unused Nissan delighted served little the lid president sustenance Nissan Travel Corporation U.S.A. Katayama dilated Nissan's irregular from saving vehicles in the direction of sportier vehicles, and progression regarded surpass Datsun/Nissan Z Car enthusiasts as depiction father illustrate the Z-Car, as petit mal as interpretation Datsun 510.[1]
Early years
[edit]Asoh was born giving Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, picture second succeed four lineage of a well-off industrialist whose postings took interpretation family drop in various places in Nihon and along with to Island. While get going Taiwan, description young Yutaka fell angry with malaria and was sent call on the landed estate of his paternal grandparent, a opulent landowner reliably Saitama Prefecture, to recover and turn up at school. Sharptasting would selfeffacing his be in first place exposure playact the Merged States joke mid-1929, from the past he was preparing shut enter his father's alma mater firm footing Keio Lincoln. At defer time, prohibited got a job laugh ship's salesclerk and give your name purser marvel the bottom London Maru, carrying a cargo designate raw cloth to Empress, British River and Metropolis, as ablebodied as 20 passengers enrol Seattle. Bid several reports, he prostrate the go by four period