The Datsun models are Japan’s version of Ford, with roots in the early 1900s as one of the earliest gas-powered automobiles on sale. They were called “DAT” cars, comprising the initials of its inventors and also meaning “fast.” The company producing DATs was taken over by American expatriates in 1930 and the name changed to Datsun. That company, Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha, would become Nissan six months later.

On this day, June 1, in 1934 the Nissan Company, an abbreviation for Nippon Sangyo (“Japan Industries”), was founded in Tokyo.

Yoshisuke Aikawa, Nissan’s president at the time, had grand plans to mass-produce 10,000 – 15,000 cars a year. Nissan achieved that target by importing American machine tools and manufacturing practices, even producing spare parts for Ford and GM vehicles. But no one on this side of the Pacific would hear of Nissan until ten years after the end of WW II, when the U.S. ended its occupation.