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Datsun (, ) was an automobile brand owned by
Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...
. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986, but relaunched it in June 2013 as the brand for low-cost vehicles manufactured for emerging markets. Nissan considered phasing out the Datsun brand for a second time in 2019 and 2020, eventually discontinuing the struggling brand in April 2022. In 1931, DAT Motorcar Co. chose to name its new small car "Datson", a name which indicated the new car's smaller size when compared to the DAT's larger vehicle already in production. When Nissan took control of DAT in 1934, the name "Datson" was changed to "Datsun", because "son" also means "loss" (損 ''son'') in Japanese and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag – thus the name ''Datsun'': . The Datsun name is internationally well known for the
510 __NOTOC__ Year 510 ( DX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severinus without colleague (or, less frequently ...
, Fairlady roadsters, and the Z and ZX coupés.


History


Origin of Datsun

Before the Datsun brand name came into being, an automobile named the DAT car was built in 1914, by the , in the Azabu-Hiroo District in Tokyo. The new car's name was an acronym of the initials of the company partners * * *. Incidentally, ''datto'' (how a native Japanese speaker would pronounce "dat") means to "dash off like a startled rabbit" (脱兎), which was considered a good name for the little car. The firm was renamed Kaishinsha Motorcar Co. in 1918, seven years after their establishment and again, in 1925, to DAT Motorcar Co. DAT Motors constructed trucks in addition to the DAT passenger cars. In fact, their output focused on trucks since there was almost no consumer market for passenger cars at the time. Beginning in 1918, the first DAT trucks were assembled for the military market. The low demand from the military market during the 1920s forced DAT to consider merging with other automotive industries. In 1926 the Tokyo-based DAT Motors merged with the Osaka-based also known as Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary) to become in Osaka until 1932. (Jitsuyo Jidosha began producing a three-wheeled vehicle with an enclosed cab called the Gorham in 1920, and the following year produced a four-wheeled version. From 1923 to 1925, the company produced light cars and trucks under the name of Lila.) The DAT corporation had been selling full size cars to Japanese consumers under the DAT name since 1914. In 1930, the Japanese government created a ministerial ordinance that allowed cars with engines up to 500 cc to be driven without a license. DAT Automobile Manufacturing began development of a line of 495 cc cars to sell in this new market segment, calling the new small cars "Datson" – meaning "Son of DAT". The name was changed to "Datsun" two years later in 1933. The first prototype Datson was completed in the summer of 1931. The production vehicle was called the Datson Type 10, and "approximately ten" of these cars were sold in 1931. They sold around 150 cars in 1932, now calling the model the
Datsun Type 11 The 1932 Datsun Type 11 was a small car with a 495 cc, 10 HP side valve engine and a three speed transmission. It was offered in several body styles, and DAT/Nissan sold 150 of the Type 11 in 1932. The Type 11 was only produced during the year 1 ...
. In 1933, government rules were revised to permit engines, and Datsun increased the
displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
of their microcar engine to the maximum allowed. These larger displacement cars were called Type 12s. By 1935, the company had established a true production line, following the example of Ford, and were producing a car closely resembling the Austin 7.Daniels, p.495. There is evidence that six of these early Datsuns were exported to New Zealand in 1936, a market they then re-entered in May 1962. In 1937, Datsun's biggest pre-war year, 8593 were built, with some exported to Australia in knock-down form. After Japan went to war with China in 1937, passenger car production was restricted, so by 1938, Datsun's Yokohama plant concentrated on building trucks for the Imperial Japanese Army. When the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
ended, Datsun would turn to provide trucks for the Occupation forces. This lasted until car production resumed in 1947. As before the war, Datsun closely patterned their cars on contemporary
Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
products: postwar, the Devon and Somerset were selected. For Datsun's smaller cars (and trucks), such as the DB and DS series, they depended on designs based on the pre-war Austin Seven. The heavier trucks, meanwhile, were based on Chevrolet's 1937 design with an engine of Graham-Paige design. Nissan also built the 4W60 Patrol, based on the Willys Jeep, and the 4W70 Carrier, based on the Dodge M37. Not until January 1955 did Datsun offer a fully indigenous design. That year, the Occupation returned production facilities to Japanese control, and Datsun introduced the
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saloon and the 110-based 120 pickup.


Datsun in the American market

The use of the ''Datsun'' name in the American market derives from the name Nissan used for its production cars. In fact, the cars produced by Nissan already used the Datsun brand name, a successful brand in Japan since 1932, long before World War II. Before the entry into the American market in 1958, Nissan did not produce cars under the Nissan brand name, but only trucks. Their in-house-designed cars were always branded as ''Datsuns''. Hence, for Nissan executives it would be only natural to use such a successful name when exporting models to the United States. Only in the 1960s did Datsun begin to brand some automobile models as ''Nissans'', like the
Patrol A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as Law enforcement officer, law enforcement officers, military personnel, or Security guard, security personnel, that are assigned to monitor or secure a specific geographic area. Etymology Fro ...
and a small test batch of about 100
Cedric Cedric () is a masculine given name invented by Walter Scott in the 1819 novel ''Ivanhoe''.Sir Walter Scott, Graham Tulloch (ed.), ''Ivanhoe'', vol. 8 of The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels, Edinburgh University Press, 1998, , "explanator ...
luxury sedans, and then not again until the 1980s. The
Japanese market Japanese domestic market (JDM) refers to Japan's home market for vehicles and vehicle parts. There is a common misconception that any Japanese branded car is JDM; however, this is not true. Only a vehicle made in Japan specifically to be sold i ...
Z-car (sold as the Fairlady Z) also had Nissan badging. In the United States, the Nissan branch was named "''Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A.''", and chartered on September 28, 1960, in California, but the small cars the firm exported to America were still named Datsun. Corporate choice favored Datsun, so as to distance the parent factory Nissan's association by Americans with Japanese military manufacture. In fact Nissan's involvement in Japan's military industries was substantial. The company's car production at the Yokohama plant shifted towards military needs just a few years after the first passenger cars rolled off the assembly line, on April 11, 1935. By 1939 Nissan's operations had moved to Manchuria, then under Japanese occupation, where its founder and President,
Yoshisuke Ayukawa was a Japanese entrepreneur, businessman, and politician, noteworthy as the founder and first president of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' (1931–1945), one of Japan's most powerful business conglomerates around the time of the Second World War. Biog ...
, established the Manchurian Motor Company to manufacture military trucks. Ayukawa, a well-connected and aggressive risk taker, also made himself a principal partner of the Japanese Colonial Government of
Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...
. Ultimately, Nissan Heavy Industries emerged near the end of the war as an important player in Japan's war machinery. After the war ended, Soviet Union seized all of Nissan's Manchuria assets, while the
Occupation Forces Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States wi ...
made use of over half of the Yokohama plant.
General MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...
had Ayukawa imprisoned for 21 months as a war criminal. After release he was forbidden from returning to any corporate or public office until 1951. He was never allowed back into Nissan, which returned to passenger car manufacture in 1947 and to its original name of Nissan Motor Company Ltd. in 1949. American service personnel in their teens or early twenties during the Second World War would be in prime car-buying age by 1960, if only to find an economical small second car for their growing family needs. Yutaka Katayama (Mr. "K"), former president of Nissan's American operations, would have had his personal wartime experiences in mind supporting the name Datsun. Katayama's visit to Nissan's Manchuria truck factory in 1939 made him realise the appalling conditions prevalent on the assembly lines, leading him to abandon the firm. In 1945, near the end of the war, Katayama was ordered to return to the Manchurian plant, however he rebuffed these calls and refused to return. Katayama desired to build and sell passenger cars to people, not to the military; for him, the name "''Datsun''" had survived the war with its purity intact, not "''Nissan''". This obviously led Katayama to have problems with the corporate management. The discouragement felt by Katayama as regards his prospects at Nissan, led to his going on the verge of resigning, when Datsun's 1958 Australian Mobilgas victories vaulted him, as leader of the winning Datsun teams, to national prominence in a Japan bent on regaining international status. The company's first product to be exported around the world was the
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, with a
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