Today, though, we’re going to reload a little bit and enjoy the new year. We may have a couple of posts up, but it’ll be lighter-than-usual. In the interim, here are a couple more production shots of Nissan from their NSIMA plant in Barcelona and the old Shatai Hiratsuka plant in Japan.
Photos: Nissan Did you know that Nissan was one of the first union shops in Japan? And that they owe their very survival to the union? Because they do. Nissan’s rapid expansion in the 1970’s was only possible because of technical advances and productivity increases that the union brought to the table. The smiling gray-haired man in this photo is one Marvin T. Runyon, a name you could be forgiven for forgetting. He was the president of Nissan USA in 1983, and responsible for nearly all of Nissan/Datsun’s success in the US. He would later serve as the US Postmaster General from 1992 to 1998, and was very successful in cutting costs by eliminating 23,000 jobs in management and replacing them with more letter carriers, counter employees, and automated sorting systems. “The Reckoning” by David Halberstram. Highly recommend. DT’s Cactus monograph, while brilliant, was four months late. By then the bloom was off the rose. Fast forward to the present, we have breathless daily posts of travel progress of the cross country transit by the founders … and then … nothing! This is a good way to lose otherwise very loyal readers. Oddly we drop a vowel from the end of that manufacturer’s name and then a vowel from the front of one of the models: Niss’n P’trol Why can’t we get the cool, British by way of Japan monikers like Fairlady Z?!
