A short article covering the history of Nissan.

A blog on the history of car manufacturing company Nissan.

The Nissan corporation started out as the DAT Motorcar Company in 1914. The name was an acronym of the company’s directors surnames, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi. In 1931 DAT released the first Datsun under the name Datson. The name was intended to literally mean son of Dat but due to the word ‘son’ in Japanese meaning ‘loss’ it was changed to Datsun. Nissan motors was officially founded in 1934 when the company expanded from the automobile parts division of Tobata Casting.

During the 1930s and 40s Nissan constructed trucks, airplanes and engines for the Japanese military. During this period Nissan also began building Austin 7s. However, it wasn’t until 1952 that Nissan entered into a full legal agreement with Austin. Through this deal Nissan agreed to assemble 2,000 Austin models that would be imported and partially assembled then sold in Japan. The agreement also granted Nissan the right to use Austin patents, something which Nissan made use of when designing engines for its Datsun range of vehicles.

In 1966 the Nissan company merged with the Price Motor Company which enabled them to include more chic high-class models into their range such as the Skyline and the Gloria. Soon after the Price Motors name was entirely abandoned and all future models bore the Nissan branding. In 1999 Nissan was facing some financial difficulties and entered an alliance with Renault, with each manufacturer keeping its own corporate image and brand identity.

In 2004 Nissan released the Titan, a full size pick-up truck that was intended mainly for the north American market. The vehicle features a 32 valve 5.6 L VK56DE V8 engine and can tow around 9500 pounds. Currently the company are working on several new concepts including the Pivo, an electric car that runs with zero emissions and has been designed by renowned Japanese designer Takashi Murakami.