In 1926 the Tokyo-based DAT Motors merged with the Osaka-based Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., Ltd. (実用自動車製造株式会社, Jitsuyō Jidōsha Seizō Kabushiki-Gaisha) also known as Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary) to become DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (ダット自動車製造株式会社, Datto Jidōsha Seizō Kabushiki-Gaisha) in Osaka until 1932.

[8] In 1930, the Japanese government created a ministerial ordinance that allowed cars with engines up to 500 cc to be driven without a license.

[13] By 1935, the company had established a true production line, following the example of Ford, and were producing a car closely resembling the Austin 7.

[6] After Japan went to war with China in 1937, passenger car production was restricted, so by 1938, Datsun's Yokohama plant concentrated on building trucks for the Imperial Japanese Army.

[14] As before the war, Datsun closely patterned their cars on contemporary Austin products: postwar, the Devon and Somerset were selected.

[14] For Datsun's smaller cars (and trucks), such as the DB and DS series, they depended on designs based on the pre-war Austin Seven.

[14] That year, the Occupation returned production facilities to Japanese control, and Datsun introduced the 110 saloon and the 110-based 120 pickup.

Only in the 1960s did Datsun begin to brand some automobile models as Nissans, like the Patrol and a small test batch of about 100 Cedric luxury sedans,[16] and then not again until the 1980s.

Corporate choice favored Datsun, so as to distance the parent factory Nissan's association by Americans with Japanese military manufacture.

By 1939 Nissan's operations had moved to Manchuria, then under Japanese occupation, where its founder and President, Yoshisuke Ayukawa, established the Manchurian Motor Company to manufacture military trucks.

Ayukawa, a well-connected and aggressive risk taker, also made himself a principal partner of the Japanese Colonial Government of Manchukuo.

After the war ended, Soviet Union seized all of Nissan's Manchuria assets, while the Occupation Forces made use of over half of the Yokohama plant.

American service personnel in their teens or early twenties during the Second World War would be in prime car-buying age by 1960, if only to find an economical small second car for their growing family needs.

Yutaka Katayama (Mr. "K"), former president of Nissan's American operations, would have had his personal wartime experiences in mind supporting the name Datsun.

Katayama's visit to Nissan's Manchuria truck factory in 1939 made him realise the appalling conditions prevalent on the assembly lines, leading him to abandon the firm.

Katayama desired to build and sell passenger cars to people, not to the military; for him, the name "Datsun" had survived the war with its purity intact, not "Nissan".

The company's first product to be exported around the world was the 113, with a proprietary 25 hp (19 kW; 25 PS) 850 cc (52 cu in) four-cylinder engine.

[19] That same year, Datsun won the East African Safari Rally and merged with Prince Motors, giving the company the Skyline model range, as well as a test track at Murayama.

It sold just over 6,000 cars there as late as 1971, but its sales surged to more than 30,000 the following year and continued to climb over the next few years, with well-priced products including the Cherry 100A and Sunny 120Y proving particularly popular, at a time when the British motor industry was plagued by strikes and British Leyland in particular was gaining a reputation for building cars which had major issues with build quality and reliability.

[28] At the time, Kawamata was a veteran of Nissan, in the last year of his presidency, a powerful figure whose experience in the firm exceeded two decades.

His rise to its leadership position occurred in 1957 in part because of his handling of the critical Nissan workers' strike that began May 25, 1953, and ran for 100 days.

During his tenure as president, Kawamata stated that he "regretted that his company did not imprint its corporate name on cars, the way Toyota does.

A single name worldwide would increase the possibility that advertising campaigns, brochures, and promotional materials could be used across countries and simplify product design and manufacturing.

Industry observers, however, speculated that the most important motivation was that a name change would help Nissan market stocks and bonds in the U.S.

The Maxima and Z continue in production in North America as of 2021, as Nissan's last direct link to its Datsun years.

[33]On 20 March 2012, it was announced that Nissan would revive the Datsun marque as a low-cost car brand for use in Indonesia, Nepal, South Africa, India, and Russia,[34] and on 15 July 2013, nearly three decades after it was phased out, the name was formally resurrected.