"GM Lost Touch With Drivers" says Nissan Top Designer

Will This Be The Opening Salvo in a War of Words?

TACH Auto Central - March 31, 2006: AP Business Writer YURI KAGEYAMA penned a news story for publication today that quotes Nissan Motor Co. Senior Vice President Shiro Nakamura's observations regarding General Motors' current "woes."

Nakamura has been design chief at Nissan since 2000 and was previously employed at Japanese automaker Isuzu Motors Ltd. Nakamura worked with GM designers in the 1980s during the alliance between Izusu and GM.

Nakamura asserts that General Motors is struggling because they had forgotten how to make cars that consumers want. "There was a lack of customer-orientation," Nakamura also said, although, according to the story, he "expressed a fondness for GM's past glory" and recalled the time as "a great experience."