Nissan Motor Corporation is a Japanese automaker that sells automobiles under the Nissan, Datsun, and Infiniti brands. Headquartered in Yokohama, Nissan is part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi transcontinental alliance. Nissan Logo history is quite interesting and intertwined with its subsidiary Datsun. Read on for more.
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Nissan Motor Corporation Information
Founded | 26 December 1933 |
Founder | Masujiro Hashimoto Kenjiro Den Rokuro Aoyama Meitaro Takeuchi Yoshisuke Aikawa William R. Gorham |
Headquarters | Yokohama, Japan |
Other brands | Datsun Infiniti |
Corporate owner | Renault |
Official website | www.nissan-global.com |
Slogan | Innovation that excites |
Nissan Logo Meaning and History
Nissan’s predecessor Jidosha Seizo Company was established in December 1933. However, the history of the companies it acquired and merged with dates back to 1910. This includes Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works and Tobata Casting Company.
In the initial years, the company produced cars under the DAT name which was taken from the initial letters of three investors who put money in Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works. The name was institutionalized as a brand in 1931 as DATSON meaning son of DAT but it was pretty soon changed to DATSUN since SON also meant “loss” in Japanese.
It wasn’t abnormal at the time for Japanese companies to continue without an official logo. Other such examples include Mazda and Toyota.
The company’s name was officially changed to Nissan Motor Company in 1934 although it continued to supply cars under the Datsun brand for export markets. A simple logo paying homage to the “land of rising sun” was used as its visual identity. This logo depicted a blue rectangle with DATSUN written in white letters and a red circle in the background.

Nissan Logo History and Evolution
The logo continued until 1984 before Nissan decided to phase out the Datsun brand and replaced the DASTUN wording with NISSAN in the emblem. In 1988, a new logo was introduced which had silver and grey colors in place of the original red and blue.

This was further changed in 1990 when the logo was done in black and white colors and the circle merged with the horizontal rectangle.

The latest update in the Nissan emblem in 2012 had shades of silver and grey without any major changes.

