Nissan or fully Nissan Motor Company Ltd is a Japanese car manufacturer with the headquarters in Nishi-ku, Yokohama. Its cars are sold under Nissan, Infiniti and Datsun brands. It’s the sixth biggest carmaker in the world. more
The company’s name is formed from the first letters of the “Nihon Sangyo” company. The Nissan logo used to be a combination of a red circle and a blue rectangle with the company name inside. However, since 2001, the logo has a chrome-colored finish.
The company was founded in 1933 after the merger of “Nihon Sangyo” and “Tobata Casting” companies. In 1935, it decided to develop the “Nissan” trade mark, but till 1980s, the marquee was famous for Datsun cars, the production of which started before the brand creation. In 1958, Nissan started to export its cars to the USA and in 1962 ? to Europe. In 1976, Nissan became the largest exporter in the world thanks to its own fleet. In 1981, Nissan signed a contract with Volkswagen for producing and selling cars in Japan. In 1989, Nissan creates Infiniti brand to sell its luxury models. In 1992, 17% of the cars of Japanese citizens were the ones, produced by Nissan.
In 1999, the company had financial problems and 43.4% of its shares were sold to Renault. In its turn, Nissan owned 15% of Renault shares. In 2014, the Renault-Nissan Alliance got 67.1% stake of Alliance Rostec, which had 74.5% of Russian car manufacturer AvtoVAZ. Thus, Renault and Nissan have control over this Russian producer.
Nissan also has its own tuning shop, NISMO, created in 1984. The main aim of it was to develop Nissan sports cars and make them more competitive in races.
Moreover, the brand releases kei cars in cooperation with Suzuki and Mitsubishi as well as pickup trucks and light commercial vehicles.