Nissan Motor Corporation marks another milestone in its history on December 26th, celebrating 80 years of moving people with their cars, trucks and vans. To mark the occasion, Nissan is holding an 80th Anniversary Heritage Car Parade in Yokohama, Japan today, on December 23 to commemorate its eight decades.
Over 100 Nissan and Datsun heritage cars will take to the streets of Yokohama, touring 10 kilometers through the city. A little history….Nissan started as Datsun. Datsun was founded in 1914 and the first three letters of the name come from the initial investors.
The name was to have been DATSON (son of D.A.T.), but in Japanese son sounds like loss, so it was changed to Datsun. There is also, evidently, some word play with the word for rabbit, which explains the fun radiator mascot that was created by Ryuichi Tomiya, one of the car’s designers.
This example is reportedly the first car to come off the company’s new Yokohama assembly line in April of 1935. The car itself was based on the British Austin 7.
