Datsun Origins<\/p>\n
The origins of Datsun<\/p>\n
Before the Datsun brand name came into being, an automobile named the DAT car
\n as built in 1914, by the Kwaishinsha Motorcar Works (\u5feb\u9032\u81ea\u52d5\u8eca\u5de5\u5834 Kaishin Jid\u014dsha K\u014dj\u014d?), in the Azabu-Hiroo District in Tokyo. The new car\u2019s name was an acronym of the company\u2019s partners\u2019 surnames:<\/p>\n
Kenjiro Den (\u7530 \u5065\u6b21\u90ce)
\nRokuro Aoyama (\u9752\u5c71 \u7984\u6717)
\nMeitaro Takeuchi (\u7af9\u5185 \u660e\u592a\u90ce).<\/p>\n
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 Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., Ltd. (\u5b9f\u7528\u81ea\u52d5\u8eca\u88fd\u9020\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e Jitsuy\u014d Jid\u014dsha Seiz\u014d Kabushiki-Gaisha?) also known as Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary) to become DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (\u30c0\u30c3\u30c8\u81ea\u52d5\u8eca\u88fd\u9020\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e Datto Jid\u014dsha Seiz\u014d Kabushiki-Gaisha?) in Osaka until 1932.<\/p>\n
The Change From Datsun to Nissan By Daniel Banks \u201cThis despite Business Week\u2019s error that Den, Aoyama, and Takeuchi founded Nissan. They did not, of course. Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama, and Meitaro Takeuchi were 3 financial backers and friends for one of the originators of the Japanese automobile industry, Masujiro Hashimoto, who founded Kaishinsha Jidosha Koto, or \u201cKaishinsha Motor Car Works\u201d in 1911.<\/p>\n
The DAT corporation had been selling full size cars to Japanese consumers under the DAT name since 1914, but in 1930 the Japanese government created a ministerial ordinance that allowed cars with engines up to 500 cc to be driven without a licence. DAT Automobile Manufacturing began development of a line of 495 cc cars to sell in this new market segment, calling the new small cars \u201cDatson\u201d \u2013 meaning \u201cSon of DAT\u201d. Another meaning was Dat- hare in flight and Son \u2013 total loss. The name was changed to \u201cDatsun\u201d two years later in 1933.<\/p>\n
The first prototype Datson was completed in the summer of 1931. The production vehicle was called the Datson Type 10, and \u201capproximately ten\u201d of these cars were sold in 1931. They sold around 150 cars in 1932, now calling the model the Datson Type 11 In 1933 the government rules were revised to permit 750 cc engines, and Datsun increased the size of their microcar engine to the maximum size allowed. These larger displacement cars were called the Datsun Type 12.<\/p>\n
Datsun in the American market<\/p>\n
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. In fact 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 Nissan begin to brand some automobile models as Nissans, and these were limited to their high-end models, for example the Cedric luxury sedan. In America, the Nissan branch was named \u201cNissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A.\u201d, and chartered on September 28, 1960, in California. Nissan may have had no problems with using the name Nissan in America, but the small cars the firm exported to America were still named Datsun.<\/p>\n
Corporate choice favoured \u201cDatsun\u201d, so as to distance the parent factory Nissan\u2019s association by Americans with Japanese military manufacture. In fact Nissan\u2019s involvement in Japan\u2019s military industries was substantial. The company\u2019s 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\u2019s operations had moved to Manchuria, then under Japanese occupation, where its founder and President, Yoshisuke Ayukawa, established the Manchurian Motor Company to manufacture military trucks.<\/p>\n
Ayukawa, a well connected and aggressive risk taker, also made himself a principal partner of the Japanese Colonial Government of Manchukuo. Ultimately, Nissan Heavy Industries emerged near the end of the war as an important player in Japan\u2019s war machinery. After the war ended, Soviet Union seized all of Nissan\u2019s Manchuria assets, while the Occupation Forces made use of over half of the Yokohama plant. General MacArthur had Ayukawa imprisoned for twenty-one 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.<\/p>\n
Datsun Fairlady<\/p>\n
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. \u201cK\u201d) former president of Nissan\u2019s American operations, would have had his personal second world war experiences in mind supporting the name Datsun. Katayama\u2019s visit to Nissan\u2019s Manchuria truck factory in 1939, made him realise the appalling conditions of 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.<\/p>\n
Datsun 240Z or Fairlady Z<\/p>\n
Katayama desired to build and sell passenger cars to people, not to the military; for him it was the name \u201cDatsun\u201d that survived the war with its purity intact, not \u201cNissan\u201d. 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\u2019s 1958 Australian Mobilgas victories vaunted him, as leader of the winning Datsun teams, to national prominence in a Japan bent on regaining international status.<\/p>\n
Katayama was made Vice President of the Nissan North American company in 1960, and as long as he was involved in decision making, both as North American Vice President from 1960 to 1965, and then President of Nissan Motor Company \u2013 USA from 1965 to 1975, the cars were sold as Datsuns. \u201cWhat we need to do is improve our car\u2019s efficiency gradually and creep up slowly before others notice. Then, before Detroit realizes it, we will have become an excellent car maker, and the customers will think so too. If we work hard to sell our own cars, we won\u2019t be bothered by whatever the other manufacturers do. If all we do is worry about the other cars in the race, we will definitely lose.<\/p>\n
Rebranding<\/p>\n
In Japan, there appears to have been what probably constituted a long held \u2018official\u2019 company bias against use of the name \u201cDatsun\u201d. At the time, Kawamata was a veteran of Nissan, in the last year of his presidency, a powerful figure whose experience in the firm exceeded two decades. His rise to its leadership position occurred in 1957 in part because of his handling of the critical Nissan workers\u2019 strike that began May 25, 1953, and ran for 100 days. During his tenure as Nissan President, Kawamata stated that he \u201cregretted that his company did not imprint its corporate name on cars, the way Toyota does. \u2018Looking back, we wish we had started using Nissan on all of our cars,\u2019 he says. \u2018But Datsun was a pet name for the cars when we started exporting.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the decision was made to stop using the brand name Datsun worldwide, in order to strengthen the company name Nissan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to change the name Datsun to Nissan in the U.S. was announced in the fall of 1981. The rationale was that the name change would help the pursuit of a global strategy. A single name worldwide would increase the possibility that advertising campaigns, brochures, and promotional materials could be used across countries and simplify product design and manufacturing. Further, potential buyers would be exposed to the name and product when traveling to other countries. Industry observers, however, speculated that the most important motivation was that a name change would help Nissan market stocks and bonds in the U.S. They also presumed substantial ego involvement, since the absence of the Nissan name in the U.S. surely rankled Nissan executives who had seen Toyota and Honda become household words.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the name change campaign lasted for a three year period from 1982 to 1984, and cost Nissan a figure in the region of US$500 million. Operational costs included the changing of signs at 1,100 Datsun dealerships, and amounted to US$30 million. Another US$200 million were spent during the 1982 to 1986 advertising campaigns, where the \u201cDatsun, We Are Driven!\u201d campaign yielded to \u201cThe Name is Nissan\u201d campaign. (\u201cThe Name is Nissan\u201d campaign was used for some years beyond 1985). Another US$50 million was spent on Datsun advertisements that were paid for but stopped or never used. Five years after the name change program was over, Datsun still remained more familiar than Nissan.<\/p>\n
Rebirth<\/p>\n
In 2001, Nissan marketed its D22 pick-up model in Japan with the name Datsun, this time however the use of the brand name was wholly restricted to this one specific model name. Production of this model was between May 2001 and October 2002.<\/p>\n