It
was a personal choice of Kawamata, who seemed to have some odd hidden streak of
Anglophilia running through him. Fair Lady had been so decreed because Kawamata
had once seen and apparently liked the musical My Fair Lady. Generally Katayama
accepted his defeats on nomenclature reasonably well, but in 1970, when the
first Japanese sports car arrived in America - the car that Katayama had always
wanted - and he saw with horror that it had actually been called the Fair Lady,
he and his men simply pried the nametag off the car and replaced it with one
using the company's internal designation for the car, 240Z. It was far more
appropriate, they decided, and using the company's own designation was the only
way he could change the name without being insubordinate. Generally, however, he
had lost out on names in the beginning, and normally on sportiness as well, but
he was winning on almost everything else. The car was adapted to American
conditions, it was economical to drive, and servicing was very good; there were
always parts.
