Datsun: Coming Back?

[ash]

It's been more than two decades since Nissan Motors phased out its Datsun brand to strengthen its own company name.

But times and circumstances changes and here we are with Nissan now planning to wake up its old Datsun brand from the dead, according to a report from Japanese business daily Nikkei that was forwarded by Reuters.

The newspaper said that Nissan wants to use the Datsun brand name on a new lineup of low cost vehicles tailor made for emerging markets starting from 2014. The move is reminiscent of Renault's decision to buy out the Romanian automaker Dacia in 1999 for the same purpose.

Nikkei said that Datsun's new range of vehicles will be priced at around 500,000 yen (equal to US$6,200 or €4,630 at the current exchange rates) and at launch will be manufactured and sold in India, Indonesia and Russia.

Nissan officials told the newspaper that they expect annual sales of around 300,000 units.

c/o CARSCOOP

[miniace]

This is good news. Got a twitter about this. Targeting low budget cars for Asian region 2014 and beyond.

MINIACE

[Reckless]

Great news! wow I love that name DATSUN

[charitha19]

see now this is a news article...

[Gummybr]

Bring back the low cost, economical and reliable Datsuns!! Its a historic brand in Japan and I believe the name Dat had roots with the first Japanese car. So Nissan gets its own three brand names. Infiniti (premium), Nissan and then the low cost Datsun.

Latest;

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/261679/

[Kavvz]

Japan’s Nikkei business daily reported last week that the Yokohama-based automaker may revive Datsun as early as 2014 for low-cost cars in emerging markets.

[nexus]

wow this is good news thanks for sharing ash.

[MrCat]

  On 3/7/2012 at 7:24 AM, nexus said:

wow this is good news thanks for sharing ash.

Oh well, not great news if they gonna roll out low cost FWD junk.. Passos, Yarisses, Altos, Bultos and the like.. That market segment is flooded with choices already..

For heaven`s sake why cant any manufacturer do a cheap RWD car anymore.!! A sub 20k dollar RWD car..!! why cant they resurrect the Datto 1600 or the b210..!!

[Gummybr]

  On 3/7/2012 at 8:49 AM, MrCat said:

Oh well, not great news if they gonna roll out low cost FWD junk.. Passos, Yarisses, Altos, Bultos and the like.. That market segment is flooded with choices already..

For heaven`s sake why cant any manufacturer do a cheap RWD car anymore.!! A sub 20k dollar RWD car..!! why cant they resurrect the Datto 1600 or the b210..!!

Yep why not bring in a Roadster like that on Ash's article. Hope the old Sylvia's will make a come back.

[rameez]

  On 3/7/2012 at 8:49 AM, MrCat said:

Oh well, not great news if they gonna roll out low cost FWD junk.. Passos, Yarisses, Altos, Bultos and the like.. That market segment is flooded with choices already..

For heaven`s sake why cant any manufacturer do a cheap RWD car anymore.!! A sub 20k dollar RWD car..!! why cant they resurrect the Datto 1600 or the b210..!!

thumbs up to that Bro....i mean why cant these buggers go for a decent RWD brand with all the modern stuff in the package like maybe a more modern B210

[nexus]

  On 3/7/2012 at 8:49 AM, MrCat said:

For heaven`s sake why cant any manufacturer do a cheap RWD car anymore.!! A sub 20k dollar RWD car..!! why cant they resurrect the Datto 1600 or the b210..!!

i'm guessing the building cost is the main factor they all gone FWD and i all so hope they build cheap affordable RWD cars but sadly there is a high chance they build FWD cars under datsun name.

  On 3/7/2012 at 2:05 PM, Gummybr said:

Yep why not bring in a Roadster like that on Ash's article. Hope the old Sylvia's will make a come back.

amen to that.

[rangerover]

Good news indeed.

[terrabytetango]

New Datsun B210 Coupe ftw.

[Gummybr]

The big man confirms that Datsun is Returning;

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/261911/

[Scooter]

The Homer, the Cedric, the Fairlady...oh happy days....I can't wait to see the Datsun marque back....I've still got half-a-litre of rust convertor and a few cans of Bondo doing nothing at the back of the shed

[Pericles]

From that article, it looks more likely that we will get a Datsun Nano clone.

[Gummybr]

  On 3/21/2012 at 6:36 AM, Pericles said:

From that article, it looks more likely that we will get a Datsun Nano clone.

Check the comments on the article by Autocar, one guy says that they could just put a Datsun badge on a Dacia , hope that wont happen.

[Gummybr]

Some more insight (I really like this article). http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2012/03/20/once-a-thorn-in-nissans-side-datsun-is-set-for-a-comeback/

So a co-founder of Apple was also featured in their commercials??

[MrCat]

  On 3/7/2012 at 5:32 PM, nexus said:

i'm guessing the building cost is the main factor they all gone FWD and i all so hope they build cheap affordable RWD cars but sadly there is a high chance they build FWD cars under datsun name.

Yes I know that the cost is a major fact. The sub 25,000 dollar car market segment is huge in the world market. If a FWD mid sized sedan is going for 21k dollars, I cant understand why they cant do a RWD for 24k. Surely buyers will pay the extra 3k for driving pleasure, I know I would. It doesn't have to be a rocket ship or a fancy coupe, but an honest RWD mid sized car. And it`ll surely give freaking over-priced Bimmers a run for their money..!

[Gummybr]

Well thought of resurrecting this thread.

Got bad news for the people who were expecting the old school cars to come back; http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/datsuns-revival-wont-be-nostaglia-play-147825

And it is noted that the platforms will be off the Lada's.

On a side note I was watching the qualifying of the WTCC first round and the Lada's seem to do ok in their first go. One car ran very well even with a full side on impact and was 9th in qualifying, says a lot about the car.

[CJ5]

  On 3/7/2012 at 8:49 AM, MrCat said:

For heaven`s sake why cant any manufacturer do a cheap RWD car anymore.!! A sub 20k dollar RWD car..!! why cant they resurrect the Datto 1600 or the b210..!!

Surely for that price a manufacturer should be able to resurrect the Morris Minors etc etc which could be fixed by any maka baas at the remotest area of the country!!!

[HardHat]

Not that everything in Wikipedia is correct but this is what it says about the "Datsun" name. Trust this is true as I remember reading similar kind of story in a magazine article around the time Nissan was phasing out Datsun name.

  Quote

"Datsun is an automobile marque. The name was created in 1931 by the DAT Motorcar Co. for a new car model, spelling it as "Datson" to indicate its smaller size when compared to the existing, larger DAT car. In 1934,[1] after Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. took control of DAT Motorcar Co., the last syllable of Datson was changed to "sun", because "son" also means "loss" (損) in Japanese, and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag, hence the name "Datsun" : Dattosan (ダットサン, Dattosan?).[2] Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986. The Datsun name is most famous for the 510, Fairlady roadsters and later the Fairlady (240Z) coupes. On March 20, 2012, it was announced that Nissan will revive the brand for use in Indonesia, South Africa, India and Russia.[3]" [unquote]

Edited March 24, 2013 by HardHat

[Gummybr]

  On 3/24/2013 at 11:33 PM, HardHat said:

Not that everything in Wikipedia is correct but this is what it says about the "Datsun" name. Trust this is true as I remember reading similar kind of story in a magazine article around the time Nissan was phasing out Datsun name.

  Quote

"Datsun is an automobile marque. The name was created in 1931 by the DAT Motorcar Co. for a new car model, spelling it as "Datson" to indicate its smaller size when compared to the existing, larger DAT car. In 1934,[1] after Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. took control of DAT Motorcar Co., the last syllable of Datson was changed to "sun", because "son" also means "loss" (損) in Japanese, and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag, hence the name "Datsun" : Dattosan (ダットサン, Dattosan?).[2] Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986. The Datsun name is most famous for the 510, Fairlady roadsters and later the Fairlady (240Z) coupes. On March 20, 2012, it was announced that Nissan will revive the brand for use in Indonesia, South Africa, India and Russia.[3]" [unquote]

I think the first part is a bit doubtful, Nissan was a Manchurian company and after the war they took over DAT and renamed it Datson meaning son of DAT. DAT where the first letters in the names of three people who financed the production. It was later that they changed the name to Datsun.

This part was off an old Readers Digest that I have at home will try to attach a pic of the story.

Edit: Well you dont need the RD mag here's the full story; http://www.datsunhistory.com/home.html Check the history part.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Gummybr

[Sampath Gunasekera]

Datsun GO heralds the return – set for 2014 debut

http://paultan.org/2013/07/15/datsun-go-heralds-the-return-set-for-2014-debut/

[fatjoe]

http://www.datsun.com/

Edited July 24, 2013 by fatjoe