| Nissan USA
In 1914, the Kwaishinsha Motorcar Works built the first DAT. The new car's name was an acronym of the company's partners' surnames: Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi. The works was renamed to Kwaishinsha Motorcar Co. in 1918, and again, in 1925, to DAT Motorcar Co. With virtually no consumer demand for its DAT pasenger cars, the vast majority of their output was DAT trucks for the military, starting in 1918. Due to the low demand of the military market in the 1920s, DAT was forced to merge with Japan's 2nd largest truck maker, Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary), in 1926. The resulting company was DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and also inherited Kubota's chief American designer, William R. Gorham, who carried out Aikawa's vision to use the latest cutting-edge auto manufacturing technologies from America. All machinery, vehicle designs and engine designs had come from the Graham factory in the USA, as Nissan had a Graham license under which Graham trucks were made. In 1928, Yoshisuke Aikawa founded the famous combine holding company Nippon Sangyo (Japan Industries or Nippon Industries) and 'Nissan' was its stock market abbreviation. This Nissan combine included Tobata Casting and Hitachi. Nissan partnered with Austin of the United Kingdom to gain access to automobile and engine designs and began building Austin 7s in 1930. In 1931, DAT introduced a new small car, the "Datson", meaning the "Son of DAT". Also in 1931, Aikawa gained control of DAT Motors, merging it with Tobata Casting's automobile parts manufacturing in 1933. The last syllable of Datson was changed to "sun", because "son" also means "loss" in Japanese. In 1933, the company name was Nipponized to Jidosha-Seizo Co., Ltd. ("Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd.") and was moved to Yokohama. Tobata Casting grew to become a new subsidiary of Aikawa in 1934, which was named Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. The shareholders were nervous, so Aikawa bought out all the Tobata Casting shareholders (using capital from Nippon Industries) in June, 1934, becoming a property of Nippon Sangyo and Hitachi. Nissan built trucks, airplanes, and engines for the Japanese military. For a breif period during the war, the main plant was in China and the company was named Nissan Heavy Industries Corp. In 1952 Nissan Motor Company of Japan entered into an agreement with Austin which allowed Nissan to use Austin patents. Nissan assembled 2,000 Austins from imported kits, selling them under the Austin trademark in Japan. After that, Nissan could make all Austin parts locally within three years, a goal Nissan met, designing, engineering, producing and marketing the larger Japaneses built Austin A50 with a new 1489 cc engine in 1955. In 1966, Nissan merged with the luxury Japanese automaker Prince Motor Company, where it also aquired the Skyline and Gloria brands. In 1959 Nissan entered the US market and established a US subsidiary. During the oil crunch of the 1970's, Nissan met the increased small economic car demands by opening new plants, worldwide, and opened up their first US plant in 1980. On March 27, 1999, the Renault-Nissan Alliance began, with each company cooperating with the other and holding a stake in the other company while still maintaining their own brands and culture. Carlos Ghosn became Chief Operating Officer of Nissan and most top Japanese executives were terminated later in 1999. Under Ghosn's direction, Nissan has experienced a revitalization that has turned around its brand.
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