Brief History About Nissan
Nissan Motor Company Ltd was found in 1934 in Japan when Yoshisuke Aikawa wanted to expand the automotive part of the Tobata Casting company and after also taking over Datsun.
From quite early on Nissan partnered with Austin and built the Austin Seven for the overseas market and then followed this with several other Austin models.
During the 50’s Nissan expanded out to other countries, such as Australia and the USA. In the late 50’s Nissans were sold in the USA and other countries as Datsun’s at first, but then gradually changed to the Nissan brand in the 70’s -80’s (although some may have been changed to Nissan in the 60’s).
In 1966 Nissan bought the Prince Motor Company, who had a car called the Skyline, which became one of Nissans most admired performance car models.
In 1986, Nissan established a factory in Sunderland, England, to help with the European market of its cars and became one of Europe’s most productive car factories.
In 1989, Nissan wanted a luxury brand and so set up Infiniti, which has gradually moved to producing more sporty luxury vehicles using the very latest technology available.
In 1999, Nissan had a few financial difficulties and so formed an alliance with Renault and has made a tremendous come back due to that alliance. In 2010 Daimler also bought into a small part of the alliance, strengthening it even further. Also in 2012 the Nissan-Renault alliance bought a majority stake in the Russian automobile manufacturer AvtoVAZ.
Nissan has also partnered with several other manufacturers on various projects in the past and still do and include Alfa Romeo, Ford, GM, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and to name a few.
Further tuning on Nissans are carried out by NISMO (Nissan Motorsport), Nissans in-house tuning shop, which was formed in 1984. Nissan have also been involved in motorsport, having formed motorsport divisions in the 60’s and even before if you like with the Datsun brand going back to the 1930’s.
300ZX (Z31) 1984-1990 & (Z32) 1990-1999
Skyline GT-R R35 (Nissan GT-R) 2008 on
