Word: kawamata
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...driving buyers from the showrooms, and auto sales in Japan have slowed markedly in the past few weeks. If the trend continues, Japanese manufacturers may not realize their ambition to overtake the West Germans this year as the world's second-largest car producers. Nissan President Katsuji Kawamata concedes that the automakers have been more concerned with marketing than with safety. To ensure continued candor by the industry, the Diet is drawing up legislation to force the automakers to report defective cars and publicly recall them for repairs...
Japan's busy automakers last week rolled out a pair of gifts. The first, personally delivered to Emperor Hirohito's palace by Nissan Motor Co. President Katsuji Kawamata, 62, was a 100-m.p.h. limousine-at last ending imperial dependence on foreign makes. The second was a gleaming batch of figures. They showed that in 1966 Japan had bumped Britain out of its No. 3 spot, moved in behind the U.S. and Germany in world car and truck production...
...they have a place to park it. In Tokyo districts already choked by industrial air pollution, traffic cops counter the effects of auto-exhaust fumes by breathing bottled oxygen kept at precinct stations. Speaking of the market-though it could apply to the atmosphere as well-Nissan's Kawamata says that "the ceiling is not even in sight...
...industry's two leaders-Toyota Motor Co. and Nissan, which account for 70% of Japan's total production-are leading the push into overseas markets. Early attempts to export the underpowered, stiffly sprung cars built for Japan's potholedroads were flops. Now, says Kawamata, we do not "take second place to any make." Japan last year sold 266,000 cars and trucks from Kenya to South Korea. Best customer: the U.S., especially the West Coast, where Toyota's $2,000 Corona and Nissan's $2,300 Datsun are among the new rages on the road...
Says Katsuji Kawamata, 60, Nissan's president: "I made up my mind strictly from the viewpoint of making our industry stronger in international competition." Far from frowning on bigness, the government served as the matchmaker, is encouraging other mergers...