The Z-car is a series of sports cars manufactured by Nissan Motors Ltd.. The original Z was sold in October 1969 in Japan as the Nissan Fairlady Z and was sold in Japan at Nissan Exhibition dealerships that previously sold the Nissan Bluebird. It was exported as the Datsun 240Z. Since 2009 Nissan has manufactured the newest Z, the Nissan 370Z. The earlier models of the Nissan Z were built at the Nissan Shatai plant in Hiratsuka until 2000, while the later models are built at Oppama and Tochigi. Enthusiasts praise the cars for their looks, reliability, performance, and affordability. Nissan Z cars currently hold the record for the best-selling sports car series of all time with over 2 million cars sold. Note this excludes better-selling sporty cars such as the Mustang and Camaro. Every Z car has been sold in Japan as the Fairlady Z and elsewhere under the names Nissan S30, Nissan S130, Nissan 300ZX, Nissan 350Z, and Nissan 370Z. The Datsun brand and its parent company Nissan are struggling. But even before the coronavirus pandemic crisis took its toll on Nissan and the rest of the global motor industry, the Japanese car maker was having a tough time. Car maker Nissan is to stop producing vehicles under the Datsun name, which has a more than century-long history. There were a few union-shaped bumps during the Fifties, but this was the decade that saw Nissan grow enormous. A panoply of new models - including an Austin A50-based saloon - saw output rise from 865 cars in 1950, to more than 32,000 in 1959. Now it could start expanding. And getting saucy. The company thought that its best bet was America. Which was an, erm, interesting decision considering how fractious relations had been during WWII. But it was also a sound one. Mitsubishi imported them into California, and they were a slow, but the solid seller. Sales abroad meant there was enough money sloshing around to go racing, and in 1958 a Datsun team won the Australian Mobilgas Trial rally in a 210 named the "Fuji-Go". The following year, it also added a bit of desirability to proceedings with the Fairlady rag-top, built from dizzyingly modern fiberglass-reinforced plastic and, if you were an Austin-Healey fan, styled by déjà- us. This, alongside the new Bluebird, hoisted sales of American sales to 1,290. Fast-forward a few models, all of which seem to be named after Seventies sitcom characters - Cedric, Silvia, Gloria - and Datsun had created a unique proposition in America. Reliable. Small. Cheap. But then came what were the first truly desirable Japanese cars. In 1969, the 510 GT-R and Fairlady Z were born, both styled just for the US market. The 510 - in cooking variety, at least (the GT-R was only for the Japanese market) - appealed to buyers' heads, and the 240Z to other neighboring organs. In the States, roughly one million Zs were sold in a decade. It took Corvette 25 years to achieve the same numbers. The popular and economical Datsun/Nissan compact pickup truck was produced in Japan in 1955 and has been sold in large numbers across all continents. Modern versions of this vehicle are still in production around the world, currently with the Frontier and Navara names. In Japan, it was exclusive to Nissan Bluebird Shop locations. The Datsun 510 was a series of the Datsun Bluebirds sold from 1968 to 1973, and offered outside the U.S. and Canada as the Datsun 1600. According to AutoWeek's G.D. Levy, the 510 has often been called the "poor man's BMW." The 510's engineering was inspired by contemporary European sedans, particularly the 1966 BMW 1600-2, incorporating a SOHC engine, MacPherson strut suspension in front and independent, semi-trailing arms in the back. The European-influenced sheet metal design is attributed to Datsun's in-house designer, Teruo Uchino. The engine was pushed through by Nissan USA president Yutaka Katayama, a design developed through Prince, an acquisition. Launched in October 1967, it was one of the most comprehensive Bluebird ranges in body styles: a two-door sedan, a four-door sedan, a five-door station wagon, and a two-door coupé. This range became famous for Nissan's rallying successes outside Japan and paved the way for greater Nissan sales internationally.
Meanwhile, in Europe, imports had been trickling in since 1962, when a shade over 700 Bluebirds were exported to Finland. The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland got their share shortly after, followed by the UK and France. The sales pitch was the same - safe, reliable, cheap, and occasionally interesting to look at - which won them Blighty's thriftiest hearts, and a place on most British streets. Come 1984, and with the Datsun brand firmly established across the world, Nissan decided it was about time it marketed its cars under the parent brand's nameplate. Datsun was dropped. But it was a pricey decision. Changing signs at the 1,100 Datsun dealerships cost $30 million. Changing the marketing epithet from "Datsun, We Are Driven!" to "The Name is Nissan" cost $200 million. Then there was another $50 million spent on approved but redundant Datsun adverts. All in, it was a $500m exercise. The Nissan S30 was the first generation of Z GT two-seat coupe, produced by Nissan Motors, Ltd. of Japan from 1969 to 1978. It was designed by a team led by Mr. Yoshihiko Matsuo, the head of Nissan's Sports Car Styling Studio. HLS30 was the designation of the left-hand drive model and HS30 for the right-hand drive model. All variants had a 4-wheel independent suspension consisting of MacPherson struts in front and Chapman struts in back. Front disc brakes and rear drums were standard. The 240Z and 260Z used twin, variable venturi Hitachi one-barrel side-draft SU-like carburetors. The carburetors were changed beginning with the model year 1973 to comply with emissions regulations, but the earlier carburetors were superior for performance as compared to the later Webers. Fuel injection was added for the 280Z in 1975 for the US. This was primarily to cope with the difficulty faced in getting enough power using carburetors while still meeting US emissions regulations. Datsun priced 240Z within $200 of the British MGB-GT introduced 5 years earlier. Dealers soon had long waiting lists for the "Z".Nissan Sunny. The Nissan Sunny is a compact car built by the Japanese automaker Nissan from 1966 to 2006. It was launched in 1966 as the Datsun 1000 and although production in Japan ended in 2006, the name remains in use in the Chinese market. In the US, the later models were known as the Nissan Sentra; in Mexico, the Sunny is known as the Nissan Tsuru, which is Japanese for the bird species "crane". The Sunny fitted neatly into the Nissan model line. It was larger than the supermini Nissan March models, but not as big as the compact Bluebird models. The latest versions of the Sunny were larger than the early models and may be considered compact cars. Earlier versions were subcompact cars. All Sunnys through the 1982 model year used Nissan A engine motors. Confusingly, the "Sunny" name has been used on other Nissan models, notably various export versions of the Nissan Pulsar model line. The Sunny has been imported and later manufactured worldwide under numerous names, and body styles, in economical, luxury, and performance packages for many decades. Some configurations appear to be unique based on body style appearances, but share a common platf.
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