Katsuro Automotive Round 6 Aftermath
The 1970s and 80s have been tough periods for Katsuro, from the company struggling to finetune their image and have a track record of producing abysmal performance cars. Not only that, the company saw an unexpected chain of events leading to the company losing out to its new arch-rivals Hampton Motor group in the subcompact class. This was an area where Katsuro was renowned, and to be beaten by a European car manufacturer was not sitting with the shareholders well.
To change direction and improve the image of the company, the following directives were considered:
- Continue to improve on the city and other compact cars
- Fire Chief Designer of the GT-100 and hire the head of a certain European car conglomerate’s performance division.
- Partner with a Japanese tuning house to create a new dedicated performance division- KRD: Katsuro Racing Division.
- Enter Japan’s touring car championship with a dedicated race team instead of sponsoring independent teams, but will still supply parts to independent race teams.
The companies sales were still very strong as the cars were extremely reliable and ranked no.1 in the world for reliability. This drove the growth of the company as customers were usually very pleased with their purchase, and thus the brand was trusted. The release of the Emerald was also well received and properly played its part in filling the gap between the Model L which was discontinued, and the King.