After more than 100 years
Nissan finally says goodbye to the Datsun brand
The Datsun redi-GO at a presentation in 2016. There will be no more new cars from the Nissan brand.
© Debajyoti Chakraborty / Picture Alliance
Datsun has a history of more than 100 years in Japan. But now the parent company Nissan has finally announced the end of the car brand.
Less than ten years after the resurrection, the Japanese car manufacturer Nissan is finally burying the Datsun brand. Production of the Datsun redi-GO at the Chennai plant in India will end, Nissan announced on Monday. Datsun production in Indonesia and Russia had already been stopped in 2020.
In 2021, only around 7,000 Datsun cars rolled off the assembly line, a Nissan spokesman told the AFP news agency. The sale runs until no more Datsun cars are in stock; the services for Datsun models would continue to be offered.
End of the Nissan marque first announced in 1981
Nissan first announced the demise of Datsun in 1981. In 2013, the then head of the company, Carlos Ghosn, decided to offer Datsun again as a cheap brand in developing countries – following the example of the Renault brand Dacia. After Ghosn’s fall at the end of 2018 and his flight to Lebanon in 2019, the new Nissan leadership decided on the new strategy of concentrating on a few brands.
Datsun’s origins date back to 1910; the first model was offered in 1931. Two years later, the brand was bought by what would later become Nissan. The Datsun brand had its heyday in the 50s and 60s. By 1981, 20 million copies had been sold in more than 190 countries.