Sorry for the hiatus, guys. Due to popular demand, the work continues! Hope I didn't get too rusty
Also, I think I need the next few pages to be scanned. Thanks.
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Since Kiichiro had such a great influence at Toyota, without him, the entire company’s energy was sapped, and for a while, no one could focus on any work.
What got Nakamura to go to Toyota in the first place was reading Kiichiro’s monthly magazine “Streamlined [流線型].” When Nakamura quit the Joint Automotive Factory, he knew he wanted to do some kind of work related to cars. He had a friend at Nissan, and if he went through him, it was possible to get into there. At that time, with most people working in the military, the shortage of engineers was becoming serious, so he wasn’t worried about finding a job.
Writing in “Streamlined,” Kiichiro talked about how he wanted to make a passenger car for the general public in Japan, without avoiding the competition with Ford and Chevrolet. Considering the state of affairs in Japan, he said that the car had to compete with foreign cars in terms of both value and performance in order to be popular. His sentences overflowed with honesty, and it gave the impression of a very earnest man.
Compared to electrical companies or iron mills, car companies of the time were much smaller in scale.
Yoshisuke Aikawa , who led Nissan Motors, formerly Nissan Heavy Industries, was trying to expand Nissan by making cars. On the other hand, Toyota, who was a rising power, didn’t look as stable as a company. However, Nakamura wanted to have a job that had more meaning, so Toyota came out looking more interesting. With that, he sent a letter to Toyota saying that he would like to work for them. He quickly got a reply and an interview, and easily entered the company.
Kiichiro’s death left a gaping hole. Since that point, President Ishida had been keeping the people with executive positions in the same place as before, but many wondered if that was a good idea from here on.
To Nakamura, he thought maybe this Crown project had been progressing in a traditional way, and maybe they needed to take a different approach. He wasn’t sure. This kind of mood lasted for a while.
