DATSUN: Nissan's American Origin Story | Up To Speed

[Music] we've got your roadster dimes and Z we've got your safari rally and mr. K plus some bad ass cars dominating scca on today's show it's the legendary Today Show it's the legendary Japanese brand that stole our hearts then changed its identity this is everything you need to know to get up to speed on Dotson Dotson is also kind of the history of missin but while the company itself was called missin some of the cars it made and exported out of Japan were called Datsuns so for today's episode I'm only gonna cover its early beginnings and the popular models and people that made it a huge success in the US sorry Aussies we know you love dachshunds - what up Marty and move let's freakin hang the company that brought dots and cars into the world started in Japan over 100 years ago as ginger question chef quite shinja motor car company their first car was built around 1914 this car needed a name so it was given an acronym made up from the initials of the three dudes who gave the company the most money d.a teeth shortly after they started the company got its first name change operation to go from question chip motorcars to . motorcars i assume because it's a hell of a lot easier to say for about the next 15 years they mostly made trucks because people didn't buy many cars back then but in 1931 they got back to it and this one was smaller than the original dodge so they called it the doc son just like Nolan is the son of me and I am the son of nobody knows but the business of building cars was just as hard back then as it is now in a nineteen 33 they merged with Jitsu Oh motorcars and for some other mundane reasons it all eventually came to be called Nissen Motor Company the new company pointed out that Sun s o n roughly translates to and I'm not being 100% literal here loser in Japanese well Sun s UN had a brighter and more sunny connotation and could also be considered a reference to Japan's national flag so they changed the cars names from dot Sun to dot Sun and the 1937 dot Sun type 15 became Japan's first mass-produced vehicle and the rest is history so that's it thank you for watching see you next week Wow I made his energy was pretty good but I don't know it definitely leaves me water board I'm just kidding you guys that's not all he got a whole bunch more to talk about Oh God - dude you take your king bed over the next two decades Nissen made airplanes engines and a lot more trucks for the japanese military and some small passenger cars badged as Datsuns they sold trucks to the US Army for the Korean War they even built Austin sevens and Austin a 50s under contract in short they were becoming successful so when it came time to expand the business worldwide the rapidly growing US of A looked like an especially great place to do it the decision was made to keep calling the cars Datsuns because Americans wouldn't associate that name with that nasty war like they might with Nissen plus if they failed the Nissen name would escape unscathed they smort that's more a datsun bluebird was shown at the 1958 LA Auto Show and went on sale in California renamed the 310 later that year Mitsubishi imported the little cars for Nissen and there were Datsun dealers across the country by the end of the next year in 1960 Yutaka Katayama aka kay was installed as the vice president of Miss ins North American operations in their new California offices mr. Kay was a bit of a rogue employee and sending him to the US would get him out of the other execs hair that decision might have ultimately made the biggest impact on Dodson success in the US and you're gonna see why in a minute sales went well over the next few years and Nissen started using the world's first specialized car carrier to meet increasing American demand for the new Datsun 410 and Dodson's were establishing themselves as affordable reliable small cars they were also about to establish themselves did you say thunder yeah - I can't I love it that was awesome things really got cookin in the late 60s from 67 to 69 nice there were debuts of the Datsun 2000 roadster the 510 sedan and the first of one of the most popular sports car lines of all time the 240z [Music] not only where the car is starting to hit with buyers they prove to be hugely capable race winners - there was this Southern Californian by the name of Pete brach who was hoping to get a couple of those brand new 2000 GTS from Toyota to build out for the SCC competition but this Texan guy named Carol Shelby swiped that deal right out from under him and left rocks BRE race team without a ride for the 68 season however Rock also saw potential in the Datsun roadsters and thought maybe he could use them to beat Shelby Americans fancy new Toyota's that were supposed to be hit after being turned away by Neeson's u.s. corporate office Brock called up a buddy in Japan who happened to know someone at the Nissen mothership well that someone conveniently turned out to be the president of the whole freaking company soon after two Datsun 2000 roadsters were flown from Japan to LA just for BRE they didn't even come over on a boat they were put on plane first-class they even make him check their bags they brought their dog didn't it's not one it's not a service animal John she's running all over the plane and all passengers back in kochore like um excuse me this dog keeps biting my child and flight attendants are like shut up that dog belongs to BRE that's 2000 rudder happened happened look it up happen look it up Google [Music] ace BRE driver John Morton the guy who invented salt started winning races in the 2000 roadster in short order mr. K loved sports cars and racing and immediately saw the value in promoting BRE success in the u.s. to sell more cars the team trounced Shelby's Toyota's and dominated SCCA club racing for the next three years at the same time that all this road racing was going on Pete Brock also got sucked into the excitement of off-road racing he first built a Datsun pickup for a motorcycle racer Mary McGee and crude for her to learn the ropes the truck finished and Brock returned the next year to take second place himself in a 510 that's just that's a little that's a car after that he came back with a whole fleet of factory supported dimes and a 240z with big all-terrain tires meanwhile on the East Coast racer Bob sharp made a name for himself by winning six SCCA national championships and Datsun roadsters and Z's he built his own dachshund dealerships just to support the team and introduced Cool Hand Luke himself Paul Newman to competitive racing you might know him as the salad dressing guy I know him as uncle Paul look it up the Newsies continued Dodson's SCC a winning streak but 5/10 saw a lot of track time to the five tens were so good that the race competitors started disappearing because they were sick of losing to this day the red white and blue striped BR eak race livery is iconic in both Datsun and racing circles I'm gonna show it to you right now I mean I'm sure Chloe's been showing you a bunch of it but I'm sure you recognize it misson was also the first manufacturer to win back-to-back East African safari rallies with a datsun bluebird 1600 SSS in 1970 and a 240z in 71 in those days people noticed who took the overall win in one of the toughest races in the world then this Japanese carmaker came along and did it twice with different cars a 240z even managed third placed in the icy 1972 rally Monte Carlo as the 70s continued the Z got bigger and bigger engines that was partly to compensate for new emissions requirements that sapped her Spurs but it never hurts to offer a bow even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was a big fan and he starred in a 280zx commercial Oh what is it about the Zico it is awesome why do they always portray him as fat in the movies you know he's just like got a wide head sure but he's a normal weighted guy but they have Seth Rogen and Josh GAD in just 10 years godson sold 1 million Z's to put that into perspective it took GM 25 years to sell that many Corvettes the Datsun 510 was known as the poor man's BMW and had more style and performance per dollar than other cars in his class we did a whole episode on him and I'll leave the link in the description below so you can get up to speed on the 5/10 the b2 10 was another popular dancing model throughout the 70s when the oil embargo hit we got to talk about it blow up the whole industry small super efficient imports went to the top of everyone's list and the b210 was one of the cheapest small cars you could buy at a time to appeal to young buyers who didn't have much money Datsun offered a stripped-down low-cost model with zero options side stripes in B decals called it honeybee they came in white yellow and brown but if he didn't get a yellow one what are you even doing because I mean it's called the B if you needed a practical get pint-sized hauler the Datsun truck was it starting with the 320 and 61 and going all the way through the 1987 20 Datsun pickups were the best-selling light trucks for half that time SoCal surfers like Matt powers especially love the 620 and best of all Datsun called them little hustlers but the market progress comes for everything and in car terms that means bigger is better by the mid 70s the 510 gave way to larger models the 6/10 7/10 in the 810 a writer Sarah came home from the hospital as a very fat baby so fat look at this picture in a brown 8/10 it lived in the garage next to a brown 280z then Sarah grew up and built her own Brown 240sx I guess Brown car appreciation runs in the family by the start of the 1980s Datsun sales were really ripping and they loads of brand recognition in the US but company bigwigs started to feel like it was time to bring all their products under the Nissen umbrella to streamline global production and advertising and to help with worldwide brand recognition in 1982 they started adding missing badges to the dots and ones on American market cars over the next two years they ran print and TV ads to promote awareness of the new name and dropped the dots and badges entirely by 1985 we're changing the name of godson to Nissan I hope you're not thinking that great performance that's been a neat line where you wouldn't dream of it all we're changing is our name in the end it probably cost the company over 200 million bones and five years later most Americans still didn't know how to Nissen was but ultimately it did pay off I mean I'm wearing the Hat cuz I doubt that you'll find anyone in America now who hasn't heard of Nissan when we started this we had one video a week now we have four and pretty soon we're gonna have seven working hard to give you guys more of that content now you apparently hike make sure you subscribe and hit that Bell so you don't miss any of it we even launched a secondary YouTube channel just for podcasts so we're gonna have a lot more of those coming out we're so so so excited about it all right I love you we got thunder shirts coming dude I gotta get over some hurdles but definitely coming soon

Channel: Donut

Views: 1,421,296

Keywords: Datsun, nissan, datsun fairlady z, Datsun 240z, 240z, nissan 240z, jdm, Datsun 510, datsun 270z, datsun 280z, datsun truck, scca, scca racing, nissan datsun, datsun bluebird, Nissan America, datsun bluebird 510, datsun 280zx, WWII, pete brock, BRE Racing, paul newman, nismo, datsun 1200, Donut Media, donut, Cars, Automotive, Car Review, Car Science, Car Tech, Best Cars, James Pumphrey, Up to Speed, review, everything you need to know, automotive history, up to speed donut media

Id: soKeg_3PGeI

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020