Overhead at a car show last weekend

[SteveJ]

Sorry, you must be confused. I WAS talking about Brand names (Chevrolet) and not the product lines of that brand (Impala, Corvette, Silverado, etc.) of a particular manufacturer (General Motors).

Call it brands, call it product lines. Call it swiss cheese. None of those examples you cited show any time that a car company has changed the brand name. All of those brands contained different product lines, even if they were only differentiated by badge engineering.

Maybe I was just confused by your spelling of Infiniti.

[moonpup]

Now we have 2 grumpy people hung up on spelling! :eek:

[EScanlon]

...One could argue that the bigger mistake was pinning the 'Datsun' name on a Nissan-designed, Nissan-engineered and Nissan-manufactured product, and hence misleading people into believing that it was a Datsun-designed, Datsun-engineered and Datsun-manufactured product.

Such a decision was always going to cause confusion when the truth was revealed.

Alan T.

Nissan's folly was in "hiding" their involvement in the new venture in the USA by using the Datsun label (and please correct me if my re-collection is off) as opposed to using the Nissan name. There is a myth / legend / report that says they were doing so to avoid the possible "disgrace" if it didn't take off .... as it did.

The Datsun brand HAD been an automobile brand that Nissan had acquired, as the Prince name. The Prince name, if memory serves, was still available in Japan for some time afterwards as a product of Nissan. Don't recall if the Datsun name was available in Japan separate of the Nissan name though.

Wow, consider all these "mistakes" and the confusion that must be out there with.....Acura(Honda), Lexus(Toyota), Infinety(Nissan), Plymouth/Dodge(Chrysler), Mercury/Lincoln(Ford) and Chevrolet/Cadillac/Pontiac/Buick(General Motors)....just to name a few past and present examples.

But those "mistakes" aren't mistakes at all. As Steve pointed out, they're apples and oranges.

Honda and Toyota had strong market presence each, and they were looking to put out a "higher" end vehicle, as did Nissan with Infiniti.

The Plymouth and Dodge names, were acquisitions of Chrysler that were allowed to remain operational and not revived names. Mercury and Lincoln (more commonly known as Lincoln-Mercury) were also acquired brands, as is the whole General Motors line up. None of those acquisitions and mergers are analogous to the Datsun/Nissan situation.

A situation more analogous to what Nissan did with the Datsun name would be if Chrysler were to revive the AMC name in order to introduce a new vehicle in some other country.

2¢

E

[geezer]

Hey E, that makes perfect sense to me, but I'm going to roll over and play dead now before I get eaten.

[conedodger]

Carl is correct. That was the prevailing sentiment in WSJ and other business publications of the time. No matter what your opinion of either name, or how hung up you are on spelling... The degree du jour at the time was the MBA and more than one thesis was written about brand recognition and the Datsun - Nissan mistake. Ironically, the MBA degree is now as common as fleas on mongrel dogs and Nissan is an iconic brand name.

I recall being disturbed by how bloated the ZX was as compared to the 240Z, then - they changed the name to Nissan! i vowed to never own a new one... That opinion has softened as I realized with time and age that the car had to get heavier and the name really didn't matter that much...

[bigoak]

Oh man...what a bunch of hooie...(I'm clearly not sure how to spell that...)

Ok, let's walk through this:

Decision 1: Post-WWII, Post-Pearl Harbor, a Japanese manufacturer decides to launch under a pseudonym to avoid the direct connection with a then despised (too strong?) or at least distrusted nation. This may be debated but is clearly a defensible position and not a fundamental blunder.

Decision 2: Fast forward 25/30 years. Acceptance of Japanese vehicles in America has rapidly progressed. Nissan makes the decision to establish the Nissan name as a global brand at the expense of brand equity built up around the Datsun name. A difficult decision and there is never an ideal time for such an implementation. That being said the progress that Nissan has made since the move is commendable. It is now a well-established brand that is recognized for providing a great performance for the price. The fact that kids these days don't recognize the Datsun brand (nor do some current Z drivers) speaks to the fact that the Nissan brand has clearly surpassed the memory of Datsun.

I still drive Datsun's though....

[Carl Beck]

"DATSUN" (DATSON) was the original Brand name of the small line of cars produced by Nissan Motors Ltd. when it was formed in 1933/4 They applied the NISSAN Brand name to a larger line of automobiles, trucks and buses years later. ( which were actually Graham-Paige Crusaders; the design and manufacturing equipment purchased from Graham-Paige in America).

Nissan Motors Ltd. was really formed as a conglomerate with several smaller manufacturing and production branches. In its earliest days for example Nissan produced parts for Fords and Chevy's being manufactured in Japan.

While it's founder, Yoshisuke Ayukawa had a strong desire to get into the automobile manufacturing business in Japan, I'd call him more of an Industrialist than a Car Guy. For example David Buick was a guy that wanted to make and sell cars (the Car Guy)... whereas William Durant putting GM together was a guy that wanted to build an Industrial Empire. Just as Durant had his technical genius in Charles F. Kettering, so Ayukawa had his technical genius in William R. Gorham.

I believe that it is more than possible that such a short time after WW-II (1958), the then current management did not want to use the NISSAN brand name on exports to America/Australia etc; because of Nissan's support for the Japanese Imperial Army in China, and more specifically the fact that its founder and President, Ayukawa had been tried and imprisoned for war crimes committed by Nissan in China. Toyota has no such PR problems with the Toyota Brand...

Photo by Travis Rogers:

FWIW,

Carl B.

[conedodger]

Oh man...what a bunch of hooie...(I'm clearly not sure how to spell that...)

Ok, let's walk through this:

Decision 1: Post-WWII, Post-Pearl Harbor, a Japanese manufacturer decides to launch under a pseudonym to avoid the direct connection with a then despised (too strong?) or at least distrusted nation. This may be debated but is clearly a defensible position and not a fundamental blunder.

Decision 2: Fast forward 25/30 years. Acceptance of Japanese vehicles in America has rapidly progressed. Nissan makes the decision to establish the Nissan name as a global brand at the expense of brand equity built up around the Datsun name. A difficult decision and there is never an ideal time for such an implementation. That being said the progress that Nissan has made since the move is commendable. It is now a well-established brand that is recognized for providing a great performance for the price. The fact that kids these days don't recognize the Datsun brand (nor do some current Z drivers) speaks to the fact that the Nissan brand has clearly surpassed the memory of Datsun.

I still drive Datsun's though....

Not sure what you think is "hooie" as you don't reference anything at all... What do you think is "hooie".

As to your first argument titled decision 1, do you actually think anyone in North America was fooled by a name change into thinking that Datsun was not a Japanese car?

Americans would be stupid if they didn't know that Datsun was Japanese. The Japanese would have to think that Americans were stupid to attempt such a hoax. They were trying to distance themselves from the Nissan name which had some unsavory associations related to WWII. For your argument to be as you said a defensible position it would have to be accurate. It is not. I am not sure anyone has said that using the name Datsun was a fundamental blunder. The discussion was that it was considered a business error to change the name to Nissan in the 1980's.

Then for your second argument, I believe it would be more accurate to say that kids don't know the name Datsun because it isn't a contemporary brand. It isn't culturally relevent to them. Culture is a powerful factor. Look at the difference on American college campuses between now and the 1960's. The world events are similar in that there is a war that many see as unjust going on now just as then. However, we have very little protest activity. The difference culturally is that there is no compulsory draft. That one factor changes the entire culture. 20 year olds now cannot even imagine themselves angry over it. It has nothing to do with them. It isn't culturally relevent. Just as there is no Datsun except historically, only Nissan is relevent.

[JonnyRock]

Wow, consider all these "mistakes" and the confusion that must be out there with.....Acura(Honda), Lexus(Toyota), Infinety(Nissan), Plymouth/Dodge(Chrysler), Mercury/Lincoln(Ford) and Chevrolet/Cadillac/Pontiac/Buick(General Motors)....just to name a few past and present examples.

Although I disagree with Carl about how severe Datsun's name change "mistake" was, your comparison isn't valid moonpup. All of the examples you cited are of various companies creating companion brands to capture different portions of the car market. Whereas Nissan simply erased all traces of the Datsun brand and replaced it with Nissan.

Initially Nissan was afraid of failure in the US market, so they entered the US market under the brand Datsun. This precaution was taken so in the event of a Datsun failure in the US, Nissan could re-enter it at a later date under the Nissan name and not have to worry about people immediately associating the name with failure.

[JonnyRock]

Wow... I got in on this conversation late. I guess that's what happens when you open the page before work and don't get around to posting until 9 hours later when you're off. When I hit the reply button, moonpups comment was the most recent one.

Now I see that everything I said had already been covered. Sorry guys.

[Carl Beck]

"

One could argue that the bigger mistake was pinning the 'Datsun' name on a Nissan-designed, Nissan-engineered and Nissan-manufactured product, and hence misleading people into believing that it was a Datsun-designed, Datsun-engineered and Datsun-manufactured product.

Such a decision was always going to cause confusion when the truth was revealed.

Alan T.

Hi Alan:

At least one person agreed with you. Katsuji Kawamata, the President of Nissan Motors Ltd. said in a 1973 interview with Business Week, that he felt it was a mistake to have introduced the Datsun Brand, rather than using the NISSAN brand from the beginning in the US. He envied TOYOTA for having done so.

I don't think too many people that bought a Datsun here in the US, did not know that it was a product of Nissan Motors, just as they knew that a Buick was a product of General Motors. The automotive press always made that clear, and most of the literature published by Nissan also made that clear.

Now however, years later the average consumer doesn't know that Nissan produced Datsun's.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[26th-Z]

This thread is way too funny.