Fairlady or My Fair Lady. Myth busted?

[Zedrally]

At our last Historic Club meeting I was given a set of magazines for the year 1963. These are an American magazine called Sports Car Graphic published by the Petersen Publishing Company.

It's quite fascinating reading about what was in 1963, an exculsive on the Fabulous Twin Mini!, testing the new Cooper "S" and a great write up on the SHELL 4000 trans-Canadian Rally, but I digress.....

What caught my attention was a Road Test on the Datsun SPL 310, which we all know as the Roadster. It was given a commendable write-up, however what caught my eye was the last paragraph.

"As you may have heard, this car was originally referred to as the FAIR LADY. Feeling this sounded to feminine to Occidental ears, they changed it to the present SPL 310. But we came across this gem of Oriental Philosphy, in the owners manual, that may have hastened the change:

You are now in the thrilling stage in the life of your DATSUN Fair Lady, the "Breaking-in" period. How far you can break your DATSUN Fair Lady will determine the amount of pleasure and advantages you can have with your Fair Lady" SCG JUly 63, p51.

Now as we have all been lead to believe the FAIR LADY name came from a high up official in Nissan who loved the film My Fair Lady so much that he wanted the vehicle named after it.

Well, this myth may well be busted as the above quote preceeds the Movie by over a year as the movie release was on 21st. October 1964, which indicates that no official could have watched this film or could be smitten by it so much that he wanted the name live on in the Roadster and later on in the zed.

[moonpup]

Quote:

"How far you can break your DATSUN Fair Lady will determine the amount of pleasure and advantages you can have with your Fair Lady"

Egads...how scandalous that line must have sounded back in 1963!

[g72s20]

He may have seen the stage musical that the movie was based on. This hails from 1956.

I think I remembered this from the early sixties because me mum was interested in it.

I found this care of google

After years of dead ends, Lerner and Loewe unveiled their masterpiece, My Fair Lady, in 1956. Their adaptation of Pygmalion retained George Bernard Shaw's social commentary, and added unusally appropriate songs for the characters of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, played originally by Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. My Fair Lady set box-office records in New York and London; the eventual movie version won seven Oscars. Lerner and Loewe's next work was the film musical hit Gigi. Their partnership cracked during the stress of Camelot in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, and became the symbol for President Kennedy's brief administration.

[Alfadog]

I had always thought it was after seeing a musical too... Not that that proves anything - other than stories like these are very hard to bust!!

[Fun_in_my_z]

The Dvd says the musical

[Zedrally]

The Dvd says the musical

What DVD????????????????????

[Carl Beck]

The DVD is wrong... it was the original Stage Play.

FWIW,

Carl

[HS30-H]

The DVD is wrong... it was the original Stage Play.

The original stage play was a musical.

[Carl Beck]

The original stage play was a musical.

Yes - the original stage play "My Fair Lady" was a musical. As I recall - Mr. Kawamata saw it either on his first visit to the US in 57/58 or his second in 62...

Oh...da... I see your point. I was following the original statement about the report that he saw the movie. If the DVD says only "the musical"... it would be technically correct.. as both the original stage play and the movie were called "musicals"

Carl

[Victor Laury]

But was it Eliza the flower tart or Miss Eliza the lady of refinement that inspired him so?

[SJGREEN71]

Carl Beck gives us more information than we may want to know about the subject. He says it was the stage musical.

http://zhome.com/History/FairladyName.html