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Nissan History
During the 1980s a change started to take place. Two other words were added on the badge of new Datsun cars - 'by Nissan'. When the name Datsun vanished completely, the transformation into Nissan was completed. The name Nissan comes from Nihon Sangyo, who bought the one-year old Jidosha Seizo Co Ltd in 1934 and changed its name to reflect his own. The company's origins are further back, however. Tobata Imono started out as a foundry company, which as demand grew, started making parts for cars. In 1931 is became part of one of Japan's first car groups, called DAT, which made its first prototype back in 1912. DAT, incidentally, are the second name initials of the company's three founders, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi. The first production car from the new group was the Datson 91, but after a couple of years the name was changed to Datsun. Now things get even more complex, because Tobata started a new company in Yokohama, which was named Nissan. The company continued to produce Datsun models, but in 1937, with the help of newly-imported machine tools, built its first Nissan model, the 70. Like the rest of defeated Japan's industrial capacity, in 1945 Nissan came under the control of the US authorities. Manufacturing of cars recommenced almost immediately. However, after control was handed back by the Americans in 1955, an agreement was signed with Britain's Austin to get Nissan back on its feet, under which it assembled Austin A40/A50 models under licence, so it was not perhaps very surprising that the very first post-war model, the Bluebird, bore an uncanny likeness to the cars from Longbridge. The Nissan company found success and built up its business effectively in the post-ware period. In 1960, Nissan made its first sales in Europe, but did not come to the UK until 1969.
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