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Even calling him the "architect" is going too far. It's too late to turn back the clock now, but ideally we'd be going back to Year Zero and simply not thinking of Yutaka Katayama as being any kind of product creator. Katayama had no such remit. He simply wasn't tasked with being a product planner, and nor was any Vice President or President of NMC-USA during the period before Nissan started manufacturing automobiles in the USA. Not only that, but the cars that Katayama's name has been synonymous with (namely the 510-series Bluebird and the S30-series Z) were not created at his sole request or designed and engineered solely for one market. In fact, during the period we are talking about - and for long afterward - there were no vehicles that were conceived, designed and engineered solely for the USA market that Katayama was responsible for when he was President. The 510 and S30 would have been created whether Katayama existed or not. Perhaps we could argue that they might not have been quite the same, but it's unlikely - if not impossible - that Nissan would not have had updated and re-designed Bluebirds and Fairladies (take those 'Bluebird' and 'Fairlady' emblems off and stick a '510' and '240' in their place if you want) to bring to market to meet new laws and regulations as well as consumer expectations. A big company like Nissan had to have models in those market sectors. After all, it had everything else in its line-up. I don't think the Steve Jobs / Bill Gates comparison stands up to scrutiny as Katayama was never the 'boss' of a company which designed and built the product it sold whilst he was boss. He was President of NMC-USA from 1965 to 1975, and during that period NMC-USA could only lobby Nissan Motors Japan for influence over what it wanted to sell, and that had to fit into the bigger picture - ie what was possible and what was convenient considering Nissan's other Export commitments and - most importantly for a Japanese auto maker in that period - its Domestic activities. Somehow we have arrived at a situation where a great man - a seminal figure in Nissan's history - is being remembered for the wrong reasons. Platitudes "thanking" Katayama for giving/bringing/creating certain cars are well-intentioned but are starting out with a premise that is mistaken. In contrast, the tributes from the likes of Bob Bondurant and Pete Brock tell of their personal respect for the man, and how he was both a help and an inspiration to them and their work. That's the kind of thing we should be remembering him for. It was Yutaka Katayama's fine work (along with that of Soichi Kawazoe and many others) in building NMC-USA's dealer and servicing network, and in being the friendly, approachable and trustworthy face of an otherwise slightly anonymous and deeply foreign company that was the big achievement here. They sold the product. MNC-USA could probably have sold plenty of product in the north American market during the period we are talking about, but if it wasn't for Katayama we probably wouldn't hold it in quite the same affection as we do. There's plenty more I could write on the subject - and it's a BIG subject - but people see much of this as some kind of attack on Katayama and his memory. That's not the intention, and I hope that - in time - we will start to understand Yutaka Katayama's life and legacy in a more realistic and accurate way. I think all great men deserve that.

A while ago I made a couple wooden shift knobs (http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/44856-making-a-wooden-shift-knob/) and while I think they turned out pretty well, I've always knew there was some room for improvement. They were "close" to the original design, but just different enough to bug me. So with that in mind, I set out to make couple more with the intent to see how close I could reproduce the original knob. After a completely unprofitable and unreasonable amount of time, effort, trial and error, and raw materials, this is what I've got. The knob I made from scratch is on the left and the original Datsun knob is on the right. Only catch is that since the shift map from the factory knob was crazed and cracked into multiple pieces, the shift maps in both knobs are reproduction pieces that I made: Here's a side view. Note that my base is real metal instead of metalized plastic: I was on a roll, so I also made another knob to accepy my red 5-speed emblem as well. Here's the happy family: I'm still working out some of the bugs, but I'm pretty happy so far. Under magnification, I can still see some remnants of the damage from the original shift map that I used as a pattern, but I'd challenge the casual viewer to discern the difference between mine and an original factory knob in excellent condition. I don't have an older style 5-speed knob, but if I had one to use as a guide (hint hint), I could probably go through the same process with it as well.

How about something like this...?

I've already described it on Nissan's facebook page. It's a real 240Z 2600# advanced composite body with 2.4 L supercharged six cylinder engine. Nissan could make a screamer out of it. They could even make a Special K Edition.

Thanks Tomo, I was thinking of an even simpler and beautiful parallel.... a guy that "could", taking a big risk and helping out a broken F1 driver hard on his luck. In the end the risk paid back many fold for both.

This thread is for Mr. K.

I installed my MSD box today. Still need to run a couple more wires but its pretty straight forward. I mounted it in the drivers kick panel where the EFI unit was. First I mounted the insulators Then the box. It fits nice in there Heres a couple shots of my engine bay. I still need to tidy things up and route my fuel lines better.

(shakes head)

G-A-R-N-E-R...........How does the Z have 60 years of history?

Mine was lean and ran bad upto 2,500 rpms, bucking and sputtering, then it would start pulling. The adjustable potentiometer made it behave throughout the rpms. A mechanic friend told me that clamping the return line built up more fuel pressure and made it run better, he said I needed a adjustable fuel pressure regulator. But that wasn't the case and saved me about $145.

well she has almost 1000 miles on the clock with boost and seems to run well for the most part. wot is amazing but cruising is the challenge especially on the freeway, as of now I bought a Little Daily Driver so i can really get some of the kinks out. a new set of 70 idles jets and a wide band 02 along with a 3in down pipe/exhaust are in the near future.