Datsun Cars

While people from the 1970s-1980s will know the Datsun brand well, newer generations will not as it was discontinued about thirty years ago. Nissan however revived the Datsun brand in 2012 as a budget offering for developing markets as its products started becoming increasingly more premium. Interestingly, Nissan was originally called Datsun till the beginning of the 1930s when the Company’s name was changed to Nissan, an abbreviation of the Tokyo Stock Exchange – Nippon Sangyo. Nissan still continued to market the brand till 1986 when it was phased out. The Datsun name is famous for cars like the 510, Fairlady and Fairlady Z (240Z), cars that are far different in ideology to the ones sold today. In 2012, Carlos Ghosn announced that the Datsun brand will be revived mainly for countries like India, Russia, South Africa and Indonesia. Nissan hoped to rebuild the budget brand’s reputation as a car that offers value and reliability. A global unveiling was held in Delhi by the Renault-Nissan CEO. The Datsun Go was finally introduced as the first low cost car from Datsun India. The Go offers excellent space which is the best in its class, a peppy engine and clever engineering to make it a low cost design. Mileage was also impressive but the Go hasn’t been able to sell as well as Nissan would have liked. The second car from Datsun was the extended version of the Go, called the Go+, a car that offers three rows of seats yet ducks under the 4 metre mark. The Go Plus is a car that is doing relatively better for Datsun India.