Datsun-Nissan renaming commercial (1984)

[akshona]

Personally I like the Datsun name. Nissan reminds me of "Cup-O-Noodles"

[280z1]

LOL

[chaseman94]

Datsun Cube...LOL

[wasdwasdwwasd]

Imagine a Datsun Skyline GT-R

[gottagetasupra]

Datsun gtr

[TeginProgress]

Now im gonna look at some more 80s commercials to laugh at.

[Immortalcheese]

oh nissan... they're godly. engine wise... and rust wise... -_-

[OlegKostoglatov]

DAT Motor Car Company was actually the name of the company back in the late 1920s and early 1930s before it became Nissan, they then came out with a smaller model car that they called a DATson, or son of DAT in 1933. They didn't cook up the Datsun name to get into the American market they were already using it when the cars first hit American soil in 1958.

[MrSparco777]

@OlegKostoglatov wasnt the DAT part the initials of the 3 founders, and the SUN part in honour of the sun?

[OlegKostoglatov]

@MrSparco777 Apparently they changed it to Sun from Son because son means loss in Japanese. The DAT Son idea was to offer a small car with an engine under 550 cc since the Japanese government at the time began allowing car with that engine displacement or less to be driven without a license.

[iceman050890]

Nissan sucks

[metalrocks21rapsucks]

@iceman050890 I bet you like VW

[iceman050890]

@metalrocks21rapsucks well yes I do! good gues. I used to like nissan, but now I don't.

[alSation81]

one of the world's biggest marketing disasters

[IstvanN1961]

@alSation81 So true. Sales tanked under the Nissan name and Nissan never fully recovered in the US market. Rather like American Motors phasing out Rambler in favor of AMC. On the other hand after a very slow start Infiniti seems to be a fairly popular nameplate in the upper-price segment, despite being Nissans.

[260zfan]

hahahahahahahahahaha

[ForzaIV]

Datsun Silvia S15? Doesn't sound very appealing to me.

[neepl8]

Haha.. I always remembered this commercial because it featured the changing letters, kind of like Wheel of Fortune. I thought it was cool that each logo had the same number of letters and for the company, only 4 letters changed.

[joh2]

I recall that Nissan was the Japanese home market name, and Datsun was used for exports. Its not the only time a car maker has rebranded its products in that manner - when a number of Chrysler's overseas operations were sold to other car makers there were name changes - Chrysler Europe cars were rebranded in 1979 to Talbot, and Chrysler Australia in late 1980 became Mitsubishi Australia (most Aussie Chryslers were rebadged Mitsubishis anyway)...

[sneakers55]

@joh2 Anyone who had a Datsun vehicle and read the manual knew that the parent company was Nissan. When Nissan wanted to start manufacturing in the USA, they would go out and say they were from Nissan. Nobody had heard of the company and the Americans made comments like "we like new manufacturers, but a company we've never heard of?" Questions would go around until figure out to say "WE MAKE DATSUNS!" Also helped when they went on the stock exchanges.

[ClefDeDavid88]

They're correct about the name changing because of them being manufacturers of war machines that were used against the allied powers. They wanted to distance themselves from that past as far as possible. Reagan was President, the economy began to boom, and American pride was back.

My dad had an 83 1/2 (that's what it was called) Nissan 4x4 with N I S S A N spanning the whole tailgate, but "Datsun" in small letters down below. It was built like a tank, but it ran (when it ran) like crap.

[ponchoyo]

datsun is an awesome name, neeeson is not. not too mentoin the "AWESOME!!" that was heard in like every z car commercial.

[elcucuydesmadrugado]

and for all of you that didn't know this, in the 70's DATSUN named its cars like this, DATSUN 240Z, 510, 610, 710, 810, 210, 160 J SSS, 1200,260Z, 280Z AND 280ZX, later on the 510,610,710 and 810 changed all the MAXIMA in 1984, the 210 to SENTRA, THE STANZA was the 610 and 710 and the 810 is the MAXIMA, the 1977 200sx (inthe USA) was the 160 J SSS, (in Mexico and the rest of america latina) and the story of the DATSUN 240Z to 260z to 280z to 280zx to 300zx in the 90's and reborn as 350z and 370Z

[elcucuydesmadrugado]

for all of y0u that never drove a DATSUN or saw the name DATSUN on this cars built by NISSAN of course, probably you were born after 1985 when the parent company NISSAN changed all the cars in America ( USA, MEXICO, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA) to just NISSAN. I had a 240 Z, a 260 Z and a 1983 turbo ZX, and my uncle had a 160 J SSS and a truck 1200 all had the name of DATSUN on the back but on the engines it said NISSAN, so it wasn't only in the USA it was almost everywhere that DATSUN was good.

[LedZeppelin13k7]

what really was that nissan decided to change the name brand name on imports to datsun...especially the nations that were a part of the allied powers during WW2. The reason was because they believed people wouldnt buy a car with the same name as the company who made the japanese zeros during the war. Nissan has always been nissan.

[wombatdj]

Not quite. Mitsubishi made the Zero fighter planes, not Datsun.

The story I heard/read was that Datsun translated to "son of a natural disaster" so it was renamed Nissan, which sounded like Rising Sun. Mechanically bulletproof regardless of the badge.

[LedZeppelin13k7]

Actually check that again....Mitsubishi was not the only company that made zeros and their engines. Nissan was a company before WW2 and they were always called Nissan. They changed the name only on American imports to Datsun. There was never a Datsun Motor Company....just a rebadged Nissan.

[chrismc410]

@LedZeppelin13k7 Wasn't Mitsubishi the main Zero manufacturer?

[fatShowPony]

@LedZeppelin13k7 Mitsubishi made the Zero so ??

[LedZeppelin13k7]

@fatShowPony So did Nissan and alot of other companies although it was a Mitsubishi design. Same goes for the United States, example: The Willy's Jeep was a design by Willy's (defunct) although Ford and General Motors also produced them during the war. Also with the motorcycle the troops were issued, they're are many bikes from the period made by Indian as well as Harley Davidson. During the war Indian produced many Harley designed bikes as well as vice versa.

[fatShowPony]

@LedZeppelin13k7 OK thanks I should have read some of your other responses, cheers.

[Jaket2000]

@LedZeppelin13k7 But Mitsubishi made the Zeros, Nissan made the cars and trucks just like Toyota. If I recall handa made motorcycles based off the BMW bikes of Germany.

[DoctorJay184]

@LedZeppelin13k7

The Japanese 'Zero' was made by Mitsubishi.

[Forzascuderiaf1]

they changed the name because datsun was involved in ww2

[av3ed]

I prefer the name Datsun.

[irolliamvolvo]

I heard that Datsun was to close to the word for Ruin so they changed it to Nissan. Either way they are great cars

[staktikis]

I ve just bought a 99 Datsun, ehm Nissan Almera.

I would love to have been born 20 years earlyer and have one of those 70s Datsuns.

Espacialy the 100A and Cherry were sweet as candy :)

[unlawf]

my first word was nissan lol nwhen i was 2 yrs

[saorielric]

ok from now on your ashley and nissan

[ClassicTVFan82]

And five years after the brand transition to Nissan was completed, Datsun is still as ever a more familiar name than Nissan is.

[whattheheck1000]

lol I was born in 1992 and my first word was Datsun, read from a phone book. And that was winter 1994!

[Mangooze118]

ooooooh my god! i miss those easy commercials. The job would have been sooooo fun at that time!

[240kgl]

The biggest mistake they ever made.

[dadsoldtapes]

really? i dont find the change that bad and Nissan today is doing much better than Ford or GM

[ClassicTVFan82]

Well, it cost Nissan USA a heck of a lot of money, in which the ensuing financial slide regarding this Datsun-to-Nissan brand transition continued on until the spring of 1986.

[dadsoldtapes]

well yeah i figure but "Datsun" doesn't really sound that appealing but w/e i wasn't even alive back then

[QuantumCarl]

Haha, yeah.

Datsun Sentra?

Datsun Skyline?

Datsun ANYTHING?

It just wouldn't work.

[mrZdude]

The fact is, Nissan was Nissan in other parts of the world. Datsun was just North America.

[QuantumCarl]

That's why everyone in Europe still refers to it as Datsun?

[mrZdude]

Do they? I know atleast in Japan its always been Nissan.

[QuantumCarl]

Yeah.

Only in Japan was it ever Nissan.

Fun Fact: Nissan is the only motor company to put a rocket in space.

[deepmelody1991]

What about Chrysler's involvement with the Saturn rockets?

[QuantumCarl]

Nissan directly funded the project and had their own people working on it.

Chrysler... man, I wouldn't go in to space with anything by Chrysler. :P

[ClassicTVMan81]

@QuantumCarl

There was the Datsun Maxima, though. It became the NISSAN Maxima in 1984, its final year as a rear-driver.

[QuantumCarl]

@ClassicTVMan81 Neat! I didn't know that. :D

I sill prefer Nissan over Datsun though.

[SteelCity1981]

@dadsoldtapes  neither does Kia but damn sure enough it's a popular urban car. I'd take having the name Datsun anyday over having the name Kia stamped on my car.

[TBustah]

It may have been a mistake from a sales point of view, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Think about all the model names that would be ruined with Datsun in front of them: Datsun Titan? Datsun Armada?

They don't pack quite the same punch. Others would sound even dumber than they already do, like Versa and Sentra.

About the only names that would sound halfway decent with Datsun would be the Z's. Datsun 240SX also sounds kind of cool, but people confuse it with the 240Z enough as it is.

[Skoda130]

@dadsoldtapes And the name is due to that, you think?

[anatoliifon]

@240kgl А я еще помню это переименование !

" В 1983 году, выплатив оставшимся в живых родственникам Хасимото огромные отступные в размере 3 млрд. иен, был совершен официальный переход на марку Nissan и разработана новая эмблема. Так окончательно исчезли автомобили Datsun." Вадим Некрасов