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Yutaka Katayama | Nissan executive, 105

Yutaka Katayama, 105, the auto marketing guru who spearheaded Nissan's launch into the U.S. car market and the individual credited by many for the rapid acceptance of Japanese autos by American consumers, died Thursday at a Tokyo hospital of heart failure, his family announced in Japan.

File: Yutaka Katayama, the "father of the Z" waves to the media after introducing Nissan's new Z car concept during a news conference in Dearborn, Mich. Katayama, who built the Z sportscar into a powerful global brand in the 1970s, died Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015, his son said. He was 105. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
File: Yutaka Katayama, the "father of the Z" waves to the media after introducing Nissan's new Z car concept during a news conference in Dearborn, Mich. Katayama, who built the Z sportscar into a powerful global brand in the 1970s, died Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015, his son said. He was 105. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)Read more
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Yutaka Katayama, 105, the auto marketing guru who spearheaded Nissan's launch into the U.S. car market and the individual credited by many for the rapid acceptance of Japanese autos by American consumers, died Thursday at a Tokyo hospital of heart failure, his family announced in Japan.

Mr. Katayama joined Nissan Motor Co. in 1935. He worked in a variety of marketing jobs before being exiled in 1960 to what looked like a dead-end job in the U.S. because he opposed a company-backed union.

At the time Nissan sold barely 1,000 vehicles a year in the U.S., under the Datsun name, through independent distributors. Mr. Katayama, known as a savvy marketer and enthusiastic gearhead, turned the company into a household name. - L.A. Times

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