Nissan can trace its roots back to the first Japanese automaker, Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works. The company’s original three investors named its first car DAT, an acronym of their surnames. That car hit the market in 1914. By 1931 the company’s name had changed to DAT Jidosha & Co. By that time its main automotive product was the DAT Type 11. (Pictured above). As a smaller version of the original DAT, it became known as the name Son of DAT, and later Datsun.
That year DAT became affiliated with Tobata Casting, a part of the Nihon Sangyo holding company, AKA Nissan. On this day in 1933 Nissan leadership founded Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (Automobile Manufacturing Co.) to take over all automobile production for Tobata. A decision in June of the next year resulted in a name change from Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha to Nissan.
