It Took Nearly A Minute To Hit 60 But It Put Nissan On America’s Map

Before 1981, Nissan cars in the US were branded Datsun, and the 1000 sedan was the first.
The frumpy four-door debuted in 1958 and used a 37 hp engine based on a British design.
Zero to 60 mph took an agonizing 46 seconds and the action was all over just 6 mph later.

Maybe it’s because Nissan appears to be circling the drain right now, but we’ve suddenly had an urge to find out more about the brand, including how it came to the US. Sure we’ve all heard of the 240Z that debuted for 1970 and many of us are familiar with the 510 that cleaned up in Trans Am racing around the same time. But what came before that, and was it any good?

The 240Z and 510 were of course Datsuns, not Nissans, with the branding switch in the U.S. not happening until 1981. And the first Datsun to be offered in the US was the dowdy 210, sold in America as the 1000, a reference to the capacity of the meek four-cylinder engine found under the hood.

It wasn’t a looker. Sure, the black and green paint on this first-year 1958 car that sold on Bring a Trailer a couple of years back (for $35,000, since you ask), is pretty swish, but the design is frumpy in the extreme.

Compared with the wide and low cars that were just starting to come out of Detroit at the time, the 1000 looks weirdly tall and narrow, like an overgrown kei car. The tacked-on sloping trunk adds another level of dowdiness, and though the speedometer’s typeface is elegant, it looks like something from a decade earlier.

The engine was a destroked version of the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) B-series pushrod four, the motor that would go on to power thousands of MGBs. Nissan had a solid relationship with BMC, having already been building BMC’s Austin A50 under license since the beginning of the 1950s, and pumping out Austin Seven clones since before the war.

Photos Bring a Trailer

It made 37 hp (37 PS) in the 1000, which sounds terrible today, and who are we kidding, it was terrible then, even though most imports were equally under-endowed. In its December 1958 test Road & Track’s car required 46 seconds to reach 60 mph (97 km/h) and topped out at a miserable 66 mph (106 km/h), well below Datsun’s claimed 75 mph (121 km/h) maximum.

“Any car that is to be successful must have either better performance or better economy than its rivals, or some fascination,” Road & Track wrote back in the day. “The Datsun has a shortage of all three.” Ouch. Fortunately, Datsuns did get better, both to look at and to drive, and within a decade the 510 was making a name for itself among enthusiasts as a cut-price BMW.