Everything starts somewhere. Don’t believe me? Look at your very own life, former baby! See what I mean? And you know what? The company that makes both the Altima and the Pao, Nissan, got its start somewhere as well. Nissan got its start as Datsun, as you may know, way back in 1914, and that early period of Datsun/Nissan is an interesting one, and one that I don’t think gets that much attention here in the West. But it should! That’s part of why I was so excited to drive this little 1938 Datsun 17. The other part is just because it’s just a weirdly friendly and appealing little car.
It’s also a very tricky car to drive because the pedals aren’t in the order you’d expect. Have you ever driven a car with pedals not where your feet expect them? It’s pretty exciting, in that I-might-lurch-into-a-hydrant kind of excitement.
I should mention that I got access to this delightful little car thanks to our pal Gary Duncan, who has a massive collection of incredible JDM (and other) cars. As always, thanks, Gary!
Here, you can watch the whole thing right here, right now, if you like:
I promised in the headline that I’ll reveal where both the Datsun and Nissan names come from, and I don’t want to be accused of being a liar (despite what my old shop teacher claims) so let’s dig into that. This will also give us a nice bit of history about the company!
Everything starts with a company called Kaishinsha Motorcar Works (快進自動車工場, Kaishin Jidōsha Kōjō). This company was founded by three men, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama, and Meitaro Takeuchi. Look at the first letters of their last names:
Clever readers have likely already deduced that those letters spell DAT, and the first car the company built, in 1914, was known as DAT: 
They later built a follow up to this car, a smaller one designed to be cheaper and to fit under a then-new (1930) Japanese ministerial legislation stating that cars with under 500cc engines could be driven sans-license. This car was the “son” of DAT, so it made sense to call it a Datson:
The only problem is that in Japanese, the word “son” can mean “loss” which is a bummer for a car, or, really, any consumer good. So, the “son” was changed to “sun” as in Land of the Rising, and the new name became Datsun! Oh, and, as a bonus, the name DAT is pronounced in Japanese as datto, which means to dash off like a rabbit, a pretty evocative name for a car. That’s why many early Datsuns had a little stylized leaping rabbit hood ornament:
Oh, and as far as the “Nissan” name goes, it has a different source. A holding company was formed in 1928 for Datsun, called Nihon Sangyo (日本産業 Japan Industries or Nihon Industries). If you make a contracted portmanteau of Nihon Sangyo, you get NiSan, and then if you throw in an extra S for luck, boom, there’s Nissan. What a generic name! It’s be like if Ford was called Amind (from American Industries) or something.
Datsun kept revising and improving their small cars over the years; The initial Datsun from 1931 was known as the Datsun 10. Then there was, predictably an 11, and then in 1933 a 12, which bumped engine displacement up to 733cc. Production of these early cars was very limited, as the company didn’t get a true integrated assembly line until 1935.
The progress over time from the 10 to the 17 was very incremental and gradual; there are those who claim this line of early Datsuns were copies of the famous Austin 7, but I don’t think that’s actually the case. There’d be no shame in it if so, as many notable carmakers got their start building Austin 7s, like BMW and, indirectly Jeep. But I think the Datsun was more inspired by the Seven than being an actual copy.
They are quite similar, but I think we’re seeing more convergent evolution than an actual duplication.
Driving this little Datsun was quite an experience; as I mentioned, the pedal layout is, to modern legs, maddening, with the throttle in the middle, sandwiched by the clutch on the left and the brake on the right.
When you drive it, at least at first, all of your muscle memory and reactions will be wrong. Luckily, power is so minimal that you’re unlikely to get yourself into real trouble. The shifter is an absurdly long and spindly metal pole with more kinks in it than a swing club. It’s comfortable, though, and once you get used to the quirks, pretty easy to drive.
This ’38 model is sort of the last of its kind; after this one, production shifted to wartime truck production to supply the war with China, which would then blur into WWII.
I think what I found most fascinating about this humble little car, aside from the cable-operated semaphore turn indicators, is how you can sort of feel the start of the mighty Japanese car industry here, despite the car’s relative crudeness and simplicity. It’s all built so well, so carefully, and you can sense that there’s great competency and capability behind it, just waiting to be unleashed on the world.
What a fascinating little car!
So fun fact about Austin Sevens and pedal arrangement (half-remembered from an old Top Gear episode): the Austin Seven’s use of the clutch-brake-gas pedal arrangement may actually have been what standardized it–so the Datsun can’t be an exact copy!
The same Top Gear episode claimed that a 1915 or 16 Cadillac was the first such car to use the modern pedal arrangement but those were built in limited numbers. So the Austin 7 gets credit for making the layout mass produced, which popularized it. I’m curious as to why the Model T’s control layout wasn’t standardized, considering how popular they were. Hell, there were no other cars at all that had the same layout as the T. Maybe the layout was patented or something
It may also just have been very bad.
Also true. To really drive a T well you need at least an extra hand and foot
@10:57: “You’ve got a oil pressure…”
Do you though? That ‘0’ is pretty concerning!
Not sure if I’m onboard with this. The car came from an extremely effed up time from an extremely effed up country.
I won’t be too interested in reading about BMWs from 1940 either.
That’s just my opinion of course. Carry on.
American cars from 2026: hold my beer.
I have never wanted a replica (I’m assuming the originals are practially non-existant) of a hood ornament so much in my life as that leaping rabbit. (the lower one) Its friggin adorable.
Ok, so after a search, apparently no one makes a replica of these and now I’m forever dissapointed. Originalls look to go for thousands when they appear at all and as adorable as they are, probably not worth getting divorced over. *sad face*
Last summer I did a mild restoration of an 80’s-era Japanese road bike called a Maruishi. Their “trademark” was a kangaroo, from “kangarut”, which looked like a guy with a long coat riding a bike. Even the cranks on some of their bikes had kangaroos on them.
They need to start doing fun stuff like this again. Down with impersonal flat tech/modern looking logos, up with adorable woodland creature logos.
I have The Complete Catalogue of The Austin Seven, by James Taylor, here is what he says about Datsun (a wall of text coming!):
The book does not have a list of sources or references, i would like to know how the author knew about Austin buying a Datsun.
I don’t know if this is useful, but there.
The National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, England has the car that Austin bought. It’s a 1935 Type 14, hardly used because it was never registered for road use and the purchase was probably well documented by the Austin company. The pre-war Datsuns were never officially exported to the UK. It’s possible a few other factors played into Herbert Austin’s reluctance to complain, such as the likelihood of success and perhaps even politics.
The story of the Benjamin inspiration is plausible. That company made a fairly popular Type A in the 1920s that fell below the 350kg weight limit for cyclecars in France. When the 500cc limit for cars sans license rule appeared in Japan, Nissan probably evaluated a number of imported light cars, including the popular Austin 7 (which itself was allegedly inspired by another cyclecar, the Peugeot Quadrilette).
However, Nissan had a lot of sources of inspiration, tooling, and design by the late 1920s. In addition to the coachbuilt Type 14, the company built a lot of military trucks. It also acquired Jitsuyo Jidosha, which manufactured light cyclecars based on the designs of an American engineer, William Gorham. So by the 1920s, Nissan was very familiar with light car design, having actively produced them.
A big difference between the Austin and the Datsun is the final drive. It’s a worm gear instead of a differential and happens to also be a feature on the Benjamin Type A. The pedal box is another major variation, and even though engine may have been an unlicensed copy of the Austin’s–same sidevalve arrangement and 76mm stroke–the displacements were never the same.
It was also interesting to learn that Nissan did actually produce licensed Austin copies after WWII (A40 Somerset). They also bought the tooling of Graham-Paige in the 1930s and thus produced copies of that much larger car.
No.
But I have used a Lenovo laptop with the stupid CTRL and FN keys in the wrong order, FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER
Oh look, here come the Lenovo apologists…
Every time I drive an automatic, my left foot is so used to hitting the clutch, that every time my brain decides I need to change gear I instinctively push on the only pedal my left foot can find, ie, the brake.
It’s not a very comfortable way to drive.
My daily for 8 years was a Genesis Coupe with a stage 3 clutch.
Every time I got into my gf’s Accent, I nearly put her poor clutch pedal through the firewall.
The factory clutch in those cars I’m sure uses the spring from a ballpoint pen as resistance.
I miss that little Jellybean ’07 Accent. So much fun to just drive flat-out everywhere.
My father did this for a bit with his first automatic in our 1965 Rambler.
You ever think the Lenovo has the keys in the right place and everyone else has it backwards?
Switching between my X1 Carbon and my HP Probook work laptop is maddening for this reason.
But I’m a Thinkpad diehard from the IBM days, so I’ll say everyone else is wrong. #TeamClitMouse
OMG I switched keyboards on my work desktop a _year_ ago and I’m still hitting inadvertent keys because of the key sizing. It’s even worse when I move to one of our family’s home laptops.
I’ve got a Microsoft laptop with a missing CTRL and FN on the right side…I hate it.
Modern Lenovos have a BIOS setting that switches the function of those keys. It’s the only reason the stupid ordering is at all tolerable to me. Of course, it’s probably very confusing if you try to use one that is switched so the keys don’t do what they say they do. Maybe someone makes replacement key caps too?
Gas pedal in the middle? There’s something new under Datsun.
Datto was a nickname for Datsun in Australia for decades, didn’t know it was legit though!
As an American, my impression was that “cut the end off and add ‘o'” was simply the legal method of naming things in all of Australia.
Maybe double up on the consonant before the “o,” if you’re feeling frisky.
EXACTLY, Zepppp-o!
God save us all, it’s like an Heir to the Empire style clone of a Marx brother. Groucho, Harpo, Zeppo, Karl, and now Zepppp-o.
Yes, though that would be Zeeppel or Zeppeel, if we follow that convention.
What’s that? Oh, sure, I’ll go read that trilogy again. And the Hand of Thrawn duology, too, just to be thorough.
It’s nice to see a fellow art appreciator, if you will. I wasn’t sure if I was just Thrawn pearls before swine.
That was so artistically done. No need to go Palleon the ritz.
In all seriousness I think the rule was “double the second pronounced vowel;” hence, you have Joruus but not Lukee
…that said, despite the double consonant I still couldn’t resist
Just double the U, in either case. Zahn didn’t give any other named examples to make a more distinct rule, as it were.
“insert a superfluous U”
wait, are the Sith clones evil because they come out British?!
That would explain the accents.
Pretty much, even our Prime Minister (Anthony Albanese) is known as Albo
I love these Jason/Torch Drives videos. But my favourite of all time is still the Hoffman.
I was in Nashville last year and my wife and I made the trek out to the Lane Motor Museum just to see the Hoffman. It’s even more hilarious in person.
Yeah, I could understand after standing next to it how it was the first car that actually seemed to out-weird Jason (said with much love and respect).
Also, I have much love for the Lane: when The Bishop and I visited a few years ago, sitting in the “come sit in it for photos” 2CV there was what truly first lit the fire for “maybe I should start looking for a 2CV to buy”. It took several years and The Bishop’s Dad’s passing to really get me to do it, but the Lane lit the fire
Yes that. This was actually my second trip to the Lane. I love the vibe there. If I ever had a car collection big enough to merit a museum it would feel like that. -On an unrelated note years ago my father and I spent several hours exploring the museum opened by the Dominos Pizza founder, only to get yelled at by a custodian on our way out, “you two can’t be in here! The museum is closed on Sundays!” News to us, we had just walked in through the unlocked front door. We also didn’t mention to the janitor that there were dozens of other people inside. Bizarre.
Think they’ll revisit it and check the fueling mechanism?
We could call the episode See More Fill-up Hoffman.
Get Nis and An: Check
Add an S for good luck: Check
Not mention that name in the US for 50 years then suddenly decide to use it in the 80s: Check
Realize in the late 90s that you might actually need a domain name because of that thing called the Internet: check
Realize that Uzi Nissan has used the domain and has a nissan dot com and nissan dot net website since the dawn of said Internet, or close (1994).
Sue the bejeezus out of the guy for theft, impersonation, cybersquatting and everything under the Sun because his last name is the same as what you chose to (re)use and he uses it for his compani(es). One of them, “Nissan foreign cars”, established in 1980, more than an year before Datsun started calling themselves Nissan in the US. The other, Nissan Computers, used later: Check.
Try to wear him down, rinse, repeat, for years: check
Fail to break him down, watch nissan dot com remain unobtainable even after Uzi Nissan’s death during the Covid epidemic: Check
Because f@ck off.
If they’d been nice about it when approaching him the first time they might’ve been able to lease it to him for less, especially if he would’ve accepted payment in sheetmetal. A couple of cars a year is nothing to an automaker and a huge perk for a small-business owner.
Well no, there are reports that they did make him an offer of $75-100k, which he was not interested in. Apparently intimidation was tried after, which he responded to with a tongue in cheek $10+ mil, which got the big guns pointed at him.
He wasn’t too small of a business – he claimed the lawsuit cost him $3mil over time.
It was all on the website when he was alive. Now it’s a tribute. Maybe better this way.
That fills in two blanks, Datsun and the likely explanation for Datto backup appliances. The Nissan origin story is,similar to Nikon, which is simply Nippon Kogaku (Japan Optical), and not the Russian Orthodox patriarch.
Datsun was good at being “inspired” by other manufacturers. Take a look at a 1948 Datsun DB next to a 1946 Crosley CC sometime, especially the front 3/4 view.
It’s adorable. 🙂
My grandfather insisted it was because when the manager was told the engineers could have the prototype ready in a week, he exclaimed, “Dat soon?!”
He never got tired of that joke.
Or the one about the airplane delivering a load of cogs to Datsun. The plane was losing power so they dumped the cogs to reduce weight. People on the ground were injured because it’s raining Datsun cogs.
New to me – and now a favorite.
My childhood friend’s father used to tell that joke but in his version, the Japanese asked the Germans for help with a name for their new car company. The Germans replied that they would think about it. The Japanese insisted that they needed the name by next week, to which the Germans replied, “Dat Soon?”
Must have been one of the original dad jokes….
“What a generic name! It’s be like if Ford was called Amind (from American Industries) or something.”
I love a good made up example. Like if you named your car company American Motor Corporation and just went with AMC. Or better yet something more generic like General Motors, GM for short. Oooh! Hypothetically, Continental Oil Company or Sun Oil Company or Texas Company or American Oil Company could be fun to shorten.
I’m sure we can make up lots more examples of portmanteabbreviations that would never exist in the real world!
hm. okay, fair.
Sorry if that came off sarcastic. Was meant to be more tongue in cheek. Maybe that didn’t come out right…
Fun fact: in the 1970s Era of Random Conglomerates (credit James Lileks for that) MPC model kits which had the Chevrolet promo contract was owned by General Mills.
So General Mills was making non-general models for General Motors.
Teledyne was equally diverse, a Water Piks and M60 tank engines were both made by Teledyne
AMC Ateliers Mecanique du Centre or Associated Motorcycle Companies
I was thinking of ‘Mopar’, which comes from plain Motor Parts.
Also, occasionally Ford are referred to as FoMoCo, but I guess that’s more of a nickname
My Focus has a fair amount of FoMoCo-stamped components under the hood.
AMC wanted to go with Amoco but that was taken. GenMoCo would have have been cool.
Lies! Here’s the real reason they named it Datsun:
When they were first starting the company, the founders realized that they needed a good name. So they called the German embassy, knowing that the Germans were great at naming things. After all, they invented the word “schadenfreude”, which is a banger!
The Germans agreed, and then asked when the new name would be needed. The founders of the company stated that they were finishing up the paperwork, so they needed the name quickly, perhaps as soon as the next day.
To which the Germans responded, “Ach! Dat soon!?”
And the rest is history.
I’ve heard that one before
It’s so narrow!! It’s funny how we have some idea in our heads of how big a 1930s car is, but when you put it on a road with normal traffic it just becomes a little cutie patootie car. It’s the same size as the kei truck in the last shot!
Depends on the model. There’s quite a number of them that were the size of Expeditions/Navigators and the gm full-size SUVs.
Big DAT energy just doesn’t sound right.
That little 17 is positively Paoleolithic. Glad to see they solved the Three-Pedal Problem in later years, perhaps with help from the Chinese?
I see what you did
Here comes Dat Car
“Look at DAT car go!”
O shit waddup
It was most certainly not a licensed copy of the Austin Seven, in fact Austin in Britain obtained one to look over for potential patent infringement and found none. They kept their sample car, though, and it’s probably one of the most-photographed examples since it’s now in the BMIHT museum.
That probably dates to a time when everything from Japan was accused of being a copy of something Western even if the Japanese car hit the market first or that they bear less resemblance to the listed cars than other celebrated Western products with long design heritages.
The question really was whether it was an UN-licensed copy. A licensed copy would have been fine since Datsun would have paid for it.
Also, we really don’t know whether the company found patent infringement. All we know is that they didn’t “press the matter”. Most likely there were enough differences between the cars that Austin would have had some trouble proving their case. Also, even though Austin did sell a few cars in Japan that market was very small. And none of the Datsuns were exported to the UK.
Somehow reminded of David selecting tires.
By the way, this is fascinating. Thank you. I’ve have 6 Datsun’s and never knew the earlier years
It looks a little more than inspired by, but ok. I mean the color is different
And here I thought Nissan* came from numerology:
Ichi = 1
Ni = 2 (symbolizing Balance, Duality, Good things come in Pairs)
San = 3 (symbolizing Birth, Life, Growth)
2+3= NiSsan (Balanced/Good Life)
*Not to be confused with Nissin Cup Noodles
**Or Nissin who made my Suzuki’s brakes!
…who merged with Keihin, Showa and Hitachi Automotive Systems to become Hitachi Astemo
Or “nissin,” the excruciating British pronunciation of Nissan.
Though I feel their pronunciation of “jaguar” makes up for it, to balance everything out…
Which one?
That awesome long u. But for some reason, it only works when used to refer to a sedan or coupe model. And it really works if it’s someone like Robert McCall in the old Equalizer saying it.