What is the meaning of the sentence ?

[sky753]

Hello Everyone,

What is the meaning of the sentence " It is funny the correspondence back and forth between the west coast and Tokyo that the Japanese in Tokyo don't believe that Americans should be riding in pick-up trucks as passenger vehicles and refuse to accommodate some design changes"

The sentence is taken from a tapescript of a advanced listening comprehension. And the context is as follows!
..." Catayama, who is a kind of exuberant, somewhat aristocratic man , was very frustrated. At home in Tokyo, there seemed to be no place for him in the company. He loved making cars. He was on the wrong side politically, and that is a very political company. and so he was almost exiled to America on the assumption that selling cars in America would be a sure place:if you wanted someone to fail, that's waht you would do. And he came here, and he loved America. I mean, he was more at home, oddly enough, in America than he was in Japan. In the beginning he would almost, I mean ,sell cars hand by hand . He would go to the Japanese gardeners in Los Angeles and sell these little pick-up trucks and he found these, you know , almost used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers, and he would hand...he'd drive the cars down to their lots, and he got to know the business, and just it began to surface in '64. That's a very importand demarcation point, 1964."

" You mention the pick-up trucks they were trying to sell on the west coast. It is funny the correspondence back and forthe between the west coast and Tokyo that the Japanese in Tokyo don't believe that Americans should be riding in pick-up trucks as passenger vehicles and refuse to accommodate some design changes."

" Well , facotries in those days were not very technologically advanced. I mean , they have this wonderful work force ,and they have this enormous ambition and this willingness as to pay a high price . But their cars were very primitive really, like American cars in the '30s. But the truck they were building was like a small tank and was very inexpensive, and they started selling on the west coast. And for the first couple years, the little truck was what carried the company. I mean that's where they made their inroads. And Catayama kept saying,' You know, you don't under...' to the home-office. ' You don't understand Americans. They drive the truck, I mean , pick-up truck . That's a car for them, I mean , they'll work in it ,and they will play in it ; they will go to the bank in it ; they will go to a drive- in movie in it ; Can we put some air conditioner? Can we make it more comfortable ? Can we put in a radio?' And Tokyo kept saying, you know, ' No, no , no, no. It should not be used for those things. We want the Americans just to drive it as a truck.' You know Catayama just had a felling that they were losing all these sales. He mostly did not win the battle on the truck, but he won a lot other battles."...

And what do the underlined respectively mean here? With regards to the first question, a teacher in the forum said it was gramatically wrong, maybe it is as it is a tapescript. Then can you tell me its proper version?

Thanks and best regards

Sky

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by sky753

Hello Everyone,

What is the meaning of the sentence " It is funny in terms of/in relation to/in view of the correspondence back and forth between the west coast and Tokyo that the Japanese in Tokyo don't believe that Americans should be riding in pick-up trucks as passenger vehicles and that they refuse to accommodate some design changes"

I would make the above changes in order to make sense of the sentence.

almost-used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers, An odd phrase - presumably these dealers are selling cars that have had very little use.

willingness to pay a high price .The factories are willing to pay more than is reasonable

drive- in movie Open air cinemas with a car park in front of the screen. The car would drive in, park beside a console, and the people in the car then could watch the film while in the car. See: http://tinyurl.com/32cj2l



Sky

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[apex2000]

'almost used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers'.
Almost used car dealers is probably second hand car dealers.
Either the dealers were Nissan or he was convinced they were Nissan dealers.

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by apex2000

'almost used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers'.
Almost used car dealers is probably second hand car dealers.
Either the dealers were Nissan or he was convinced they were Nissan dealers.

He set out to make them into Nissan dealers.

[sky753]

Originally Posted by Anglika

He set out to make them into Nissan dealers.

Can I comprehend 'almost used car dealers whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers' this way:

He found the almost used car dealers and was sure from his own experience that the dealers would sell Nissan pick-up trucks for him as Nissan trucks were cheap and the dealers also sold used cars, which had the similar price level!

[Anglika]