Datsun DA

The Datsun DA was a small saloon that Nissan sold under the Datsun name as its first post-war passenger car. It appeared in November 1947, when the occupying Allied command again permitted passenger car production in Japan. Because the tooling for the pre-war Datsun Type 17 no longer existed, the DA was built on the platform of the Datsun 1121 truck, which in turn came from the pre-war 17T truck. It used the 722 cc Type 7 side valve engine and floor-shifted three-speed manual gearbox of the 17T, with a pressed steel grille and almost no brightwork. It was the lower-cost Standard Sedan, sold beside the more modern ponton-bodied Deluxe Sedan (DB). A chromed grille arrived in 1949 and the rear body was reshaped in 1948. Production ended in 1950, when the Datsun DS series took over.