Hemmings Article - Nissan 50th Anniversary in the US

[Mike B]

Here's an article from the new Hemmings Sport and Exotic Car magazine about Nissan's 50th Anniversary in the US that a friend sent me today.

-Mike

DatsunArticleHemmings.pdf

[Carl Beck]

Really SAD.... really sad...

FWIW,

Carl B.

[Jeffrey]

Wow what a piece of crap article. Writting skills are lacking there not to mention research skills.

[Carl Beck]

I posted the following to the Hemmings Forum for their Sports & Exotic Car Magazine.

http://forums.hemmings.com/viewforum.php?f=6

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To bad Jeff Koch had to repeat the same old "Goertz Myth" related to the design and development of the Datsun 240-Z. Worse yet, he failed to give any mention of the design team headed by Mr. Matsuo that actually did design the car. So I will.

Mr. Teiichi Hara, Manager Nissan Design and Development

Mr. Kazumi Yotsurnoto, Manager, Passenger Car Styling Section

Mr. Yoshihiko Matsuo, Chief of Design, Styling Studio #4

Mr. Akio Yoshida, Assistant Designer (Exterior Design)

Mr. Sue Chiba (Interior Design)

Mr. Eiichi Oiwa and Mr. Kiichi Nishikawa (Styling Studio Assistants)

Mr. Hidemi Kamahara and Mr. Tsuneo Benitani, Design Engineers

(engineering everything under the skin).

The "Goertz Myth" was started by the American Automotive Press, then carried on by the Authors of the first few books written on the subject of the Z Car. It has been repeated over and over by writers that failed to do any basic research of their own.

Koch writes:

"As far back as 1963, Albrecht Goertz was a design consultant with Nissan; his Fairlady-based Silvia coupe is considered a classic in Japan, but he also worked on a GT car that was to be powered with a Yamaha engine. When the engine wasn't what Nissan had hoped for, the project stopped, and Goertz left - but his styling study remained."

It is true that Goertz did get a contract for "Design Consulting" with Nissan in 1963. However hiring a Design Consultant is quite different than hiring a Designer. As a Design Consultant Goertz did work with the Designers at Nissan to improve their Design Process, Design Tools and Design Techniques and in that regard he seems to have done good work.

Also true that he refined the styling already done at Nissan for the Silvia body. I don't know about the Silvia being considered a "Classic" in Japan, but the article was supposed to be about Nissan's 50 Years in America, and the Silvia was a huge flop here. Shown only at the New York Auto Show, it was pulled off the show circuit and sent back to Japan, because the American reaction to it was so negative. Koch should have continued to quote Mr. Sharpe, who said the Silvia was too small and cramped for Americans and lacked the HP necessary to survive on American Highways. The silvia was a huge flop in the Sales Department even in Japan, with fewer than 600 units sold over several years of production.

The car Goertz left behind at Nissan was the Nissan 2000GT. The result of a Joint Project between Nissan and Yamaha Design. Nissan had their 2000GT design already started when Goertz joined the team. Yamaha also had their A-550X prototype, which they continued to develop after the Joint Nissan/Yamaha effort was brought to an end. The Nissan 2000GT should not be confused with the Yamaha A-550X. The A-550X was actually a pretty good looking GT, but kept within Yamaha's design facilities.

Looking at the Goertz inspired Nissan 2000GT today, it is hard to imagine how it could have evolved into anything other than perhaps another flop. Part 63 Corvette Sting Ray and part Triumph GT-6 it bore little, if any resemblance to the Z Car designed years later within Nissan's Sports Car Styling Studio.

Here - http://zhome.com/History/Truth/All6SideBySide.jpg

You can see both the initial clay model (center left) and the metal prototype (lower left) in the two lower left frames, that Mr. Goertz left behind at Nissan. Both were developed as 4 cylinder cars, based on the chassis of the older Datsun roadster. In terms of styling, you can see the influence provided by the Triumph GT-6 and the 63 Corvette Sting Ray... none of which shows up in the Datsun 240-Z.

The Datsun 240-Z bore far more rresemblance to the 67 Ferrari 275GT.

Koch ends his article by stating; "And Goertz? His part in the story was largely unacknowledged within Nissan until 1980, when they finally issued him a letter of credit for the concept (if not the design) of the Z."

This is utter nonsense. Had Koch bothered to read the letter from Nissan to Goertz he would have realized that Nissan maintained its position that the design of the Datsun 240-Z was the work of its own design team. What Nissan did credit Goertz with was "his fine work" - as a design consultant working within Nissan's design departments on tools, technique and process improvements. You can read the complete text of the letter at: http://zhome.com/History/Truth/NissanStatement.htm

A decade after the "Goertz Myth" was started, Mr. Matsuo wrote the story of how the Z Car was designed, and offered proof in terms of original design sketches, photographs of the design alternatives considered, the design selected for advancement and the physical evolution of that design. Goertz on the other hand wrote and published his own autobiography, in which he too offered proof in terms of photographs of the initial drawings, clay models and design development OF THE BMW 507!! covering several pages ..... but nothing - nada - zip - in terms of "his" design efforts related to a Sports/GT at Nissan. That is because he had nothing to do with the design of the Datsun 240-Z, and his own autobiography shows that all too clearly.

The above is of course my own conclusion - but one based on my own extensive research efforts, not simply the regurgitation of speculation from the past and poorly researched rumor.

FWIW,

Carl

Carl Beck, President

Internet Z Car Club

Clearwater, FL USA

http://ZHome.com

[Oiluj]

I agree, the article is inaccurate and I wish they had gotten their facts straight.

However, I think that as we see more articles in well known publications, the better it is for all of us as owners of classic Datsuns.

[HS30-H]

Nice work on the 'Goertz Myth', Carl.

Mr. Kazumi Yotsurnoto, Manager, Passenger Car Styling Section

That's Yotsumoto, by the way.

If I have some free time over the next couple of days, I'll send a similar rant to the Hemmings Forum - but mine will be on the topic of Mr Yutaka Katayama. People seem to be writing increasingly exaggerated accounts of his exploits and achievements, which - to mind mind at least - does nobody any good. Pretty soon he'll be a weird amalgam of Leonardo da Vinci, Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Colonel Sanders.

He's a great man who has a wonderful lifetime of achievements and inspiration behind him, but people need to get things back into perspective and stop exaggerating.......

Alan T.

[sblake01]

Colonel Sanders was highly overrated. He wasn't even ever really a Colonel.

[26th-Z]

A very nice post, Carl. Something we have not discussed in some time and I am glad to see it come up again for the newer crowd on this site. I shall write to Hemmings as well.

One thing that should be brought to attention, at least on this site is that the original design studies involved a convertible sports car and not the GT model studies linked to Goertz. Here are some pictures from 1966. Another interesting point is the similarity the S30 prototype study in 1967 had to the Maserati Mistal prototype. I recall a conversation with Mr. Matsuo about his shock at seeing the car and how coincidently similar it was to his own work at the time.

[westpak]

yes, it is great for us newbies to get this type of info as to how things really went down thanks

[hls30.com]

Good to see the Z police smacking around the essence of quick buck journalism! One more case of a reporter doing a bare minimum of research, and not seeing what has actually been discussed by those that keep the drive alive.

If I had anything else to ad, it would be shame on Hemmings if they don't correct the issue, and get that guy to straighten out his "facts" and print a more researched version.

Will

[Mike B]

Let's see if you guys like this 2006 article about Mr K (from the same Hemmings magazine) any better.

http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2006/01/01/hmn_feature17.html

-Mike

[HS30-H]

Let's see if you guys like this 2006 article about Mr K (from the same Hemmings magazine) any better.

http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2006/01/01/hmn_feature17.html

-Mike

Mike B,

I think the article you linked to is better written than the other Hemmings article, but it still reads like a bid for the canonisation of an already beatified figure.

So many of these Katayama hagiographies seem to be written with the huge over-simplification of 'Katayama = good, Nissan = bad', and appear to have little comprehension of what was really going on in the BIG picture; most of which was happening inside a company and a nation / society undergoing unbelievable (re)growing pains that the writer usually fails to acknowledge. You'd almost get the impression that Nissan Japan's very existence was merely to make products for the USA market, and for Katayama's 'pet' state of California at that.........

So with the Katayama-as-saint writing we get hoodwinked into believing things that are patently not true. For example, in the Hemmings article above we get told that Katayama was the sole driving force behind Nissan's participation in the 1958 Mobilgas Trial ( he wasn't ), against the resistance of Nissan's board of directors ( which was patently not the case ), and get fed a somewhat out-of-context Halberstam quote about Japanese corporate culture having a "....fear of failure" during the period. Presumably Toyota's board of directors didn't share this 'fear of failure', as they had entered the Mobilgas Trial in 1957...........

Next paragraph we read that "...to everyone's great shock - everyone except Katayama, that is - the little Datsun won the rally." But in truth they were well down the overall finishing order and simply won their class - which was a great achievement in itself, but quite different to the overall victory that is implied. It is a huge presumption to imply that nobody except Katayama was expecting a good result, so once again we see this exaggeration and sanctification of Katayama - to the detriment of all others.

Then we get some paragraphs that paint Katayama as the sole pioneer of Nissan's expedition to the USA market ( he wasn't ) and the implication that the USA market was Nissan's first export market ( it wasn't ). Chuck in a couple of anecdotes that portray Katayama as virtually running the operation single-handedly and the picture is almost complete.

Next a description of the 510 Bluebird as "...Mr K's car..." - as though he was solely responsible for any natural progression from the 410 and 411 series - ignoring the fact that Japan was on its own journey of self-improvement, and that the Japanese home-market consumers had dreams, hopes and aspirations too. Does anybody seriously think that Katayama was in any way the single driving force behind the progress and updating of the company's products, and in particular their design and engineering? Such a belief would require you to completely ignore what was happening inside Nissan, and inside Japan as a whole, during that period.

And of course the apocryphal story about Katayama prising off 'Fairlady' emblems to replace them with '240Z' emblems ( which materialised miraculously out of thin air? ) is wheeled out for good measure. This story seems to have taken on a complete life of its own down the years, despite appearing to have little foundation in fact. Taking into account the fact that the HLS30U 'Fairlady Z Export Model' that was amongst the lineup of models that debuted at the Tokyo motor show in October 1969 was already wearing 'Datsun' and '240Z' emblems, it seems hard to believe that this story really means what the teller would like it to mean.

Ignoring the ins-and-outs of this emblem-changing story ( thinks: maybe it needs its own thread ) let's just look at what it signifies; Another example of Katayama rocking the boat, and behaving like a headstrong individual who was going to get his way whether his bosses liked it or not.

Many will find that an inspirational story I'm sure, but personally speaking I see good and bad on both sides, and can imagine that such blatant insubordination must have rubbed quite a few people up the wrong way. Can it be any surprise that Katayama was eventually 'promoted sideways' and ordered back to Japan? I don't see why people paint this as some kind of huge betrayal by his bosses? Katayama's very vocal public slating of the old boys back in "Tokyo" ( conveniently putting 'them' into black cowboy hats, and himself in the white cowboy hat ) was always going to have some repercussions for him. If anything it reads more like a political story than one of corporate endeavour during a period of boom.

We have arrived at a situation where anybody who would dare to criticise Katayama - or, more to the point, highlight some of the hyperbole and exaggeration in the stories written about him - risks being classified as an insane heretic. He really does walk on water, it seems. But I believe such obsession with one figure - even when he is such an important and pivotal figure - obscures the achievements of many others, and distorts the big story.

Alan T.