Rising Datsun: The American history of a Japanese brand

Based on the Austin A50 Cambridge, the PL210 or 1000 sedan was the first Datsun to arrive on U.S. shores in the late 1950s. While the official company name was Nissan, its passenger-car line was Datsun, and all U.S. imports would be so-badged. This particular example is held as part of the Nissan heritage collection, and is a bit battered from winning a round-Australia endurance rally, Datsun's first such motorsport victory. The race team's leader was Yutaka Katayama, a man who would eventually become a household name among Datsun fans as "Mr. K."

The decision to bring Datsun to America was not without its casualties: Shin Maki, a young engineer with the company, lost both of his front teeth after an accident put his head through a windshield during testing in California. Still, the blocky little 37-hp sedan (a R&T review of the time called the performance "melancholy") managed win a drag race with a VW Beetle and the decision was made—the first examples started selling stateside in 1958 for around $1600.

San Diego dealer Ray Lemke sold the very first Datsun Pickup in America, and likely soon regretted it. The customer, a former Navy man named Richard McCutcheon, chased down the tiny little truck as it was being hauled to the dealership and insisted on buying it. Lemke did so, then promptly found out he wouldn't have another model to display for a further three months.

The little Datsun soon had a strong following among gardeners, farmers and California do-it-yourselfers, with a quarter-ton payload, easy-to-park dimensions and decent fuel economy. While America collectively scratched its head at the Datsun 1000 sedan, the tiny pickup truck made solid inroads.

This four-seater fibre-glass-bodied roadster had the underpinnings of the somewhat-feeble Austin-based Datsun 1000 sedan, so it's hard to imagine that this is where the legendary Z's can trace its lineage.

Not that they sold many - the car was almost immediately replaced by a steel-bodied version with more power and better construction. Even so, this is the Fairlady as it appeared first, dropping its "h's" and generally performing like the bedraggled Cockney flower girl it was beneath the shiny paint.

In Japan, the bluebird is a lucky symbol. Certainly this new sedan, Nissan internal code PL310, saw fortune smile upon the company, finally resulting in some real competition for Toyota in the home market.

Powered by a 1.2L inline-four with 48hp, the Bluebird was the genesis of what would eventually become the Altima and Maxima models, and could also be bought as a station-wagon variant. By 1962, US sales were up to a modest 2,629, largely due to Katayama's energetic hustling. Mr. K hand-delivered many Datsuns to West Coast dealers himself, and reportedly went door-to-door talking to Japanese immigrants and farmers, trying to drum up business.

First introduced in the early 1960s, the Jeep-like Patrol was tiny but tough, with a 4.0L straight six producing 125 horsepower. Make that Trigger-power.

With only a shoestring advertising budget, the fledgling Datsun managed to get Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy, as a spokesperson for the brand by giving him a Patrol, a couple of Datsun Pickups and a Station wagon. "Well," Rogers drawled, in a 60-second TV spot shot on his own sprawling California property, "I'm going to take the workhorse of the ranch out and do a little shootin'." It was happy trails for Datsun.

Here is where Datsun legitimately started producing a real sportscar. Now a two-seat roadster with 85hp, the new Fairlady would take a class win at the inaugural Japanese GP at Suzuka raceways in 1963. By the late 60s, a 2000cc, 135hp version would be capturing the imagination, even though it was soon overshadowed by the Z.

Katayama's Eastern US counterpart, Soichi Kawasoe, has been largely over-looked by history, framed as the by-the-books salaryman to Mr. K's enthusiastic black sheep performance nut. The truth is that both men worked hard to build the brand in these early days and VP Kawasoe, an engineer by trade, even travelled to dealerships to get his hands dirty making repairs.

With a steel uni-body designed by Pininfarina, the new Bluebird sedan would finally be the winner Nissan USA had been waiting for. Given an internal code of PL410, the four-door sedan (also available as a station wagon) started out with 60hp and ran up to a respectable 96hp in a later 1600cc sports version.

With comfortable seats, a decent gearbox and peppy, efficient engine, the Bluebird finally caught on in America. Datsun sales in 1966 were 29,239, a ten-fold increase in just four years.

When the 510 first hit the scene in the late 1960s, R&T had this to say: "...the American tendency to go for more and more power is being adhered to." Granted, a 97hp 1600cc engine might not seem a powerhouse option, but in a car as light and nimble as the rear-drive 510, it created essentially a bargain BMW.

Behind the scenes, Mr. K had been fighting for the 510 for years, battling Nissan's slow-moving bureaucracy who figured if smaller engines were good enough for Toyota, they were good enough for Datsun. Katayama was already an outsider for his interest in racing, unseemly for a Japanese executive at the time, and he had to resort to back-channels to get the car he wanted.

Luckily, it was the car America wanted too, more powerful than almost anything in its class and with a fully-independent suspension and decent brakes to make it a true performer. Nissan priced the little Datsun at $1996 - around a dollar a pound - and sold hundreds of thousands of them.

The iconic Z-car has already spawned innumerable books and legends, everything from its troubled early genesis as a prototype tie-in with Yamaha to the way a showroom-damaged display model allegedly got racer Bob Sharp a Z before Peter Brock.
All you really need to know can be picked up in just seeing one on the street: that characteristic 2.4L straight-six sound, that gorgeous shape - a European GT in the style of a Ferrari or Jaguar for around the same price as a Ford Mustang. The public loved it - it was the high point for the rising Datsun.

Called the Sunny in overseas markets, the humble little 1200 was often over-looked as it sat parked on dealer lots next to the sporting 510 and the luscious 240Z. And yet the 1600lb tyke accounted for about 60% of Datsun's sales.

Modestly powered, with a 1.2L 67hp engine, the lightweight 1200 was nonetheless extremely efficient. When the 1973 oil crisis hit, Nissan's ad-men ran a Datsun coast-to-coast, tracking mileage and handing out orange "Datsun saves" jerry cans.

Datsun 1600 Pickup

Even as the 240Z morphed into the 260Z on a slide to becoming a bigger, heavier grand tourer, Datsun's scrappy little pickup trucks continued to sell strongly. By 1975, they were powered by a 2.0L four-cylinder with 110hp, and had a reputation for efficiency and durability.

Sadly, 1975 also saw a changing of the guard at Nissan USA, with Mr. K being recalled to Japan, and Kawasoe, "the Engineer", taking retirement soon after. Leadership soon transferred back to a Japan home-base, with only occasional visits state-side.

First wearing the Maxima badging in the 1981 model year, the 810 and 810 Deluxe sold in the US were based on a Japanese-market Bluebird 910 with a stretched out hood to house the 2.4L straight-six. Maxima models had four-wheel disc brakes and a standard auto-box, along with the now-famous phonograph-based warning system which gently chided, "Lights are on," if the driver forgot to switch off.

Perhaps not as noticeable initially was the tiny subscript "by Nissan" as part of the Datsun 810 badging. By the early '80s all Datsuns morphed into Nissans gradually, in a move that would initially confuse customers.