Datsun is the first name used for now known as Nissan cars
The new car's name was an acronym of the company's partners' family names:
- Kenjiro Den.
- Rokuro Aoyama.
- Meitaro Takeuchi. It was renamed to Kwaishinsha Motorcar Co. in 1918, and again to DAT Motorcar Co. in 1925. DAT Motors built trucks in addition to the DAT and Datsun passenger cars. The vast majority of its output were trucks, due to an almost non-existent consumer market for passenger cars at the time. Beginning in 1918, the first DAT trucks were produced for the military market. It was the low demand of the military market in the 1920s that forced DAT to merge in 1926 with Japan's 2nd most successful truck maker, Jitsuyo Motors.
In 1926 the Tokyo-based DAT Motors merged with the Osaka-based Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., Ltd. a.k.a. Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary) to become DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Osaka until 1932.
In 1931, DAT came out with a new smaller car, the first "Datson", meaning "Son of DAT". Later in 1933 after Nissan took control of DAT Motors, the last syllable of Datson was changed to "sun", because "son" also means "loss" in Japanese, hence the name "Datsun".
In 1933, the company name was Nipponized to Jidosha-Seizo Co., Ltd., "Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd.") and was moved to Yokohama.
Nissan name first used in 1930s
In 1928, Yoshisuke Aikawa founded the holding company Nippon Sangyo (Japan Industries or Nippon Industries). "The name 'Nissan' originated during the 1930s as an abbreviation"[4] used on the Tokyo stock market for Nippon Sangyo. This company was the famous Nissan "Zaibatsu" (combine) which included Tobata Casting and Hitachi. At this time Nissan controlled foundries and auto parts businesses, but Aikawa did not enter automobile manufacturing until 1933.[5]
Nissan would eventually grow to include 74 firms, and to be the fourth-largest combine in Japan during World War II.[6]
In 1931, Aikawa purchased controlling(?) shares in DAT Motors, and then in 1933 it merged Tobata Casting's automobile parts department with DAT Motors. As Tobata Casting was a Nissan company, this was the beginning of Nissan's automobile manufacturing.
read source : wikipedia.org
