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Today, though, we’re going to reload a little bit and enjoy the new year. We may have a couple of posts up, but it’ll be lighter-than-usual. In the interim, here are a couple more production shots of Nissan from their NSIMA plant in Barcelona and the old Shatai Hiratsuka plant in Japan.
The Autopian, while off to a noteworthy start for a new automotive blog, shows signs of immaturity.
DT’s Cactus monograph, while brilliant, was four months late.
By then the bloom was off the rose.
Fast forward to the present, we have breathless daily posts of travel progress of the cross country transit by the founders … and then … nothing!
This is a good way to lose otherwise very loyal readers.
Not very loyal if you kick your own rocks and leave…
Is this 2023 Nissan theme because 2-3 is pronounced Ni-San in Japanese? I may have missed a post because I haven’t been at work for a few days.
Those pictures remind me of the movie Gung-Ho.
Ah, the glory days of Nissan. When they were a car company and not a hollowed out, dead-eyed husk of a manufacturer churning out rentals.
Did you know that Nissan was one of the first union shops in Japan? And that they owe their very survival to the union? Because they do. Nissan’s rapid expansion in the 1970’s was only possible because of technical advances and productivity increases that the union brought to the table.
The smiling gray-haired man in this photo is one Marvin T. Runyon, a name you could be forgiven for forgetting. He was the president of Nissan USA in 1983, and responsible for nearly all of Nissan/Datsun’s success in the US. He would later serve as the US Postmaster General from 1992 to 1998, and was very successful in cutting costs by eliminating 23,000 jobs in management and replacing them with more letter carriers, counter employees, and automated sorting systems.
Really great book on the histories of Nissan and Ford
“The Reckoning” by David Halberstram. Highly recommend.
I can’t see a Nissan pickup without thinking of how visibly annoyed my uncle would get when, after he bought a Nissan extended cab something-or-other in the 80’s, my dad would ask him how his Nissin (rhymes with pissin’) was doing. I thought my dad was doing this on purpose until I heard him express interest in buying an Eagle “Tá-lon”.
Remember Pontiac’s ads back then? “Fiero?! Is that one of those I-talian cars?”
Isn’t Nissin one of the companies that makes ramen noodles?
Yep.
My dad did the same thing with the Eagle, I’ve never heard anyone else do it. Weird.
That’s just how we pronounce Nissan here in Australia.
Oddly we drop a vowel from the end of that manufacturer’s name and then a vowel from the front of one of the models:
Niss’n P’trol
In my highly biased opinion, the Australian “rhymes with pissin” is the correct Nissan pronunciation. That and pronouncing Mazda with a short “a” in the first syllable. None of this North American “Mars-dah” nonsense!
The 720 had a trim package called the “Lil’ Hustler” which Nissan should totally bring back!
Lil’ Hustler? Actually, I think he’s still living in Lebanon at the moment.
It’s a hustler, baby, it just wants you to know
What happened to the road-trip crew? The last update here was Friday and their post on social media was when Jason tweeted a picture of Otto at Omega Mart in Vegas Saturday morning.
Are they spending the weekend there? Broken down in the desert? Surprise appearance in the Tournament of Roses parade? Wandering through The Backrooms only to emerge in LA over the next couple days having not only successfully moved David there but living in an alternate reality where the Torchinskys never left?
Yeah. Does “lighter than usual “ mean that there will be no more word on David, Jason , and Otto?
The Donner Pass has claimed more victims…
The bucket of mashed potatoes was foreshadowing
Jason had the urge and found himself lost at The Rusty Filament, one of the seediest taillight bars west of the Mississippi, and hasn’t been seen in days?
A taillight bar so seedy it’s known as the Hellblende.
The final installment will be released at easter ?
Despite my irrational proclivity to never-Nissan, Datsun was awesome and one of the best car names. Never new why they canned it.
Internal reasons of corporate pride and politics, with zero customer focus.
I’ve always been even more annoyed that Nissan gives the States bland, corporate-y vehicle names.
Why can’t we get the cool, British by way of Japan monikers like Fairlady Z?!
Even if not Cedric, Silvia, Gloria etc. – they’ve had more chipper names like March, Sunny, Violet, Cherry, Bluebird! (Though Bluebird would’ve been trademarked already here surely.)