Guess there is a bit of a myth about it... But here's a bit more to support the badge removal!
Quote, originally posted by This article originally appeared in the JANUARY 1, 2006 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car. »
Yutaka Katayama's philosophy is simple: Love cars. Love people. Love life. He was not an engineer, a designer or a line worker, but his tireless efforts transformed Nissan from a laughable also-ran to a worldwide powerhouse in a matter of just two decades.
His love for automobiles figures prominently throughout his life. His father, a successful businessman, had several automobiles prior to World War II, and young Katayama grew up around classic cars. Following the war, when so many Japanese were searching for food and shelter, Katayama became obsessed with finding a classic car to drive. He also organized the first post-war Japanese car club, the Sports Car Club of Japan, in 1951.
Many of his co-workers at Nissan joined the company because they felt it was a growing concern, and would provide good jobs for many years to come. David Halberstam wrote in his excellent history The Reckoning: "Katayama chose Nissan because it was about cars, and he was about cars, and he not only wanted to build them, he wanted to drive them."
Nissan in Japan was not the easiest place for Katayama to thrive. He was ambivalent at best about the trade unions that were so pervasive in the Japanese auto industry. He refused, on numerous occasions, to run for union office, and it would repeatedly cause him trouble throughout his career.
Katayama was an avid reader of car magazines and, in 1958, when he was in the advertising department at Nissan, he read a story about the upcoming Around Australia Mobilgas Trial, a grueling 10,000-mile race over rugged terrain. Katayama knew that Nissan's cars weren't pretty or sporty, but they were solid, built like trucks, and ideal for such a race. He presented a proposal to the board of directors. Resistance was great. "One of the most pervasive forces in Japan," wrote Halberstam, "was the fear of failure." The product name alone-Datsun-was devised to deflect shame from the parent company if the product eventually failed.
To everyone's great shock-everyone except Katayama, that is-the little Datsun won the rally. Katayama returned home a hero in a country that was starved for nationalistic pride.
Following this success, Nissan began to think seriously about exporting cars abroad, specifically to the United States. Nissan needed someone to supervise the company's operations in California. Katayama knew that the job was as much an exile as it was a reward, but he relished the experience anyway.
Nissan had sales operations on both coasts of the United States, but Katayama felt California was a natural fit for the company's humble products. He laced together a small, idiosyncratic dealer network composed mostly of used-car dealers and service station owners that had been priced out of American car franchises.
Nissan's first office was on the seventh floor of the Mobil Oil Company. Katayama moved it to a first-floor office in Gardena, California, saying "Cars run on the ground. How can you sell them on the seventh floor?" In those days, Nissan had only a few dozen employees in California, and Katayama took up the slack. "One Saturday morning," wrote Halberstam, "when a customer came to headquarters needing a particular part, Katayama was there alone; he went back into the parts department and found it. Not knowing how much it cost, he charged the customer $1."
According to Johnnie Gable, Mr. K's personal secretary to this day, his success should be attributed almost solely to his love for people. Unlike other automotive executives of the time, Katayama was out among the people, talking with them on planes and in airports, finding out what made them buy cars. He was obsessive about providing exemplary service to Nissan's customers, noting: "A car sale doesn't stop at payment or delivery-that is simply the beginning."
His dealers loved him because he listened to their problems with the products, and fought constantly with Tokyo to improve them, though his requests fell on deaf ears. When he asked for more horsepower, Tokyo refused.
The 510 was Mr. K's car, and it represented a great personal victory. It featured a more powerful 1,600cc engine that he'd been requesting for years. When the first one came off the ship in California, Mr. K drove it out of the parking facility himself. The 510 gave American customers something they'd never had before: an inexpensive, stout, durable car that was also sporty and not unappealing to the eye. It was a smash hit and the fulfillment of Mr. K's vision. When Japan's iconic sports car arrived the next year in California, Katayama was horrified that the car was named "Fair Lady." He pried off the badges and replaced them with badges carrying the car's internal name: 240Z.
Under Mr. K's leadership, Nissan went from selling 1,640 units a year in 1960, to selling just 20,000 units fewer than Volkswagen in 1975. But Mr. K knew that success meant the end of his freedom, and that the considerable publicity he'd received was detrimental to his standing at the home office. The sentiment was that Katayama had gone native. "Everything I do right here," he said, "will be considered something I did wrong by Tokyo." In 1977, Katayama received word to return to the home office. Upon arrival, he was told that he had been retired a few days before.
Yet, 30 years later, Katayama still promotes the Nissan brand. This August, at the age of 96, he attended the annual Z convention in Syracuse, New York, where, according to Johnnie Gable, he took hot laps with Bob Bondurant at the wheel. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1998.
"By dint of a rare human vision," wrote Halberstam in 1986, "he helped to make a small, incompetent Japanese company an exciting one, pushing it relentlessly to produce its best."
