Yutaka Katayama, father of the Datsun Z, dies at 105

To judge from the public frenzy it aroused, the Z might well have stood for Zowie! The 240Z, a sleek two-door sports car that made its U.S. debut in 1969, unleashed an acquisitive tempest. In the process, it proved that a Japanese automaker Nissan, or Datsun, as the brand was then known here could succeed in this country. Yutaka Katayama, a retired Nissan executive who died Thursday at 105, was widely considered the father of the Z.

Main man

With the Z, Datsun would change the auto industry’s perception of Japanese cars, The New York Times wrote in 2008. An ebullient, adventurous man familiarly known as Mr. K., Katayama was the first president of Nissan Motor Corp. USA. He had arrived here in 1960, a time when the label Made in Japan on any consumer product was associated in the American mind with slipshod construction. By the time he retired in 1977, Katayama had built a nationwide network of dealers and promoted two highly successful models: the Datsun 510 sedan, first marketed here in 1967, followed by the dazzling Z.

His work is chronicled in The Reckoning, David Halberstams 1986 book about the auto industry.

In 1960, seeking to punish him, Nissan executives transferred him to the worst Siberia they knew: Southern California. Placed in charge of Nissan’s Western US operations, Katayama had the onus of building the Datsun brand there, and, as he later made clear in interviews, the company fully expected him to fail. Datsun was then selling about 1,000 vehicles a year in the entire country.

Katayamas first great success came with the Datsun 510, a small, fleet sedan that was seen as a less expensive alternative to the BMW 1600. Then came the Z, that soon-to-be-ubiquitous object of desire designed by Yoshihiko Matsuo. After leaving Nissan, Katayama returned to Japan, where he drove contentedly until nearly the end of his life. His death, in a Tokyo hospital, was confirmed by his family.

COMMENT NOW