What would be a better way to celebrate a defunct automaker’s hundredth anniversary than ressurrecting it? Like it was mentioned over the past few months, Nissan now concretes the intention of bringing back its low-cost marque in order to increase the group’s participation in emergent markets. However, this case will be a little different from the similar ones because one of these is Dacia, which belongs to the same alliance. This article will introduce you to what will be both the new Datsun and its very first product in 27 years.
This company’s history begins with DAT Motorcar Co., whose name was an acronym of its founders’ surnames. Since its first vehicle was called DAT-GO, the second line arrived seventeen years later as Datson, in 1931: the intention was to highlight the new cars’ smaller size calling them “DAT’s sons”. The next changes came when Nissan purchased the company in 1934, changing the name to Datsun in order to refer to the sun in the Japanese flag. Datsun’s operations were merged into Nissan’s right after that, helping the new owner to increase its image specially around Japan and United States. The following years saw Nissan repositioning Datsun as its lower-cost brand in some countries, selling cheaper and slightly older vehicles, although some of them were just rebadged Nissans. Datsun was phased out around 1986, in a time that “low-cost brands” had a very different meaning from nowadays’. Until the 1990s these kind of companies were known for offering very old vehicles, usually without receiving important upgrades for decades, and dedicated specially to undeveloped Asian and European countries. Some examples of that were Dacia 1300 and Lada Niva.
However, the latest years have managed to rewrite the How to produce cheap cars book. Factors such as global strategies, tougher safety standards and specially clients’ preferences urged the automakers to stop facelifting old cars in favor of modern ones. The costs now aren’t reduced by not investing but by doing it in much more efficient projects. In other words, strategies such as sharing platforms, optimizing the production and selling the cars in several countries, which obligates them to deliver standards high enough to satisfy multiple publics. This strategy was made famous by Dacia Logan’s success (which actually came to replace 1300, how about that?) and became followed by many other companies… one of them being Nissan, through ressurrecting Datsun. But this particular case required some additional planning because Dacia belongs to Renault, which has been allied to the Japanese for years. Dacia became a full-sized automaker over the last decade, entering several categories which intend mostly to take the more rational European customers, which don’t care for the emotional aspects brought by the main brand. While this concept is very similar to Datsun’s, the new company will have a slightly different focus, leaving the Romanian “cousin” to compete with what’s supposed to: the VW-owned Škoda.
Just like one hundred years earlier, Datsun will debut in a few months with a vehicle called Go. But it’ll be sold mostly in Asian markets, which is confirmed by starting with Indonesia and Russia, besides South Africa. These markets are just as important as European and Latin ones, but they are somewhat easier to satisfy because don’t have equipment standards as high as the firsts’ or cultural influences as strong as the seconds’. Such conditions start to be expressed with Go’s minimalism: it is essentially a no-frills Nissan Micra, also called March. This is noticed by the car’s overall shapes and confirmed by its dimensions, which are almost the same. The differences start with the styling: while Micra used the last facelift to became more stylish, Go adopted straight and discreet elements to compose a long-lasting impression of modernity – there’s a rule in the car world which basically states that the more “revolutionary” a car looks, the quicker it looks old-fashioned. It’s nice to observe it didn’t turn out an unattractive car, just like many people claim Toyota Etios is: Go features a good-looking style, with well-designed volumes that avoid being flashy – the low-cost character is still very easy to notice by the lack of sophisticated items or more elaborate shapes.
Entering the car gives the very same idea, actually. Equipments like gearshift lever and the very handbrake were taken to the central console, probably to save on extending internal parts. Besides, the gap freed by such strategy between the front seats was filled with an extension of the passenger’s which connects both – however, even the most permissive safety rules would beg the future customers not to think of seating a third person at this space. As expected, the equipment list will be reduced: air conditioning, power steering, multimedia sound system and front electric windows. And when it comes to the powertrain, there will be front-wheel-drive, a five-speed manual transmission and a gasoline 1.2L engine – not even one other option to any of those. This is how Datsun achieves a low-cost car intended to those countries, which will have to deal with long distances and complicated traffic with some comfort and specially fuel efficiency. Go will start at 400,000 Indian Rupees, but it won’t take long for Datsun to release more vehicles with a similar purpose. The most probable will be a sedan, a small pick-up truck and an even smaller hatchback, this one intended to compete with Tata Nano.