Regarding Datsun and Nissan...a little history. Nissan Motors took over the Datson (note spelling) motor company, primarily a manufacturer of trucks, around 1915. 'DAT’ in Datsun comes from the last names of the major financial backers of Datson - Den, Aoyama, and Takeuchi. Nissan changed the name to Datsun, because "son" in Japanese has some bad connotations. During WW2, Nissan Motors was a very large part of the Japanese military manufacturing effort. Built trucks, jeep-like vehicles, etc. After the war ended, Nissan wanted to enter the consumer market, but realized that the name Nissan might get some bad press because of the war, so they marketed their entries under the Datsun name, and had great success in the US. From 1981 to 1984, at a cost of about $500 million, Nissan gradually phased out the Datsun name, and replaced it with Nissan. The main reasons are a little obscure, and may partly be due to the CEO of Nissan's ego as much as anything. (It is said he wanted to keep up with Toyota...) The official reasons given were global name recognition, and increased sale of Nissan stock in the US.

Whew. That's probably a lot more than anyone wanted to know...lol

Dave
R-7963