CarBrandLogos archive · Datsun · 1957

DatsunBluebird

Nissan's family saloon, and the car that taught America the badge was worth trusting.

Photo: Toyotacoronaexsaloon · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Datsun history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Datsun Bluebird, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The Bluebird nameplate covers nearly half a century of Nissan's mainstream saloon, and it began in the mid-1950s as a small, upright, rear-drive car aimed squarely at Japan's emerging private-buyer market and at the taxi trade that underwrote it. Successive generations grew with the country's incomes.

Datsun Bluebird · Mytho88 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The one that mattered internationally was the 510 of 1967. Nissan gave a cheap family car overhead-cam power, MacPherson struts at the front and independent semi-trailing-arm suspension at the rear — specification borrowed conceptually from expensive European saloons and sold at a fraction of the price. In SSS trim, with twin carburettors, it handled well enough that Americans took to calling it the poor man's BMW, and it built Datsun a reputation in the United States that the 240Z would then capitalise on.

1953 Datsun DB-4 · Kzaral,cropped and altered by uploader Mr.choppers · CC BY 2.0

In production

Competition helped. Bluebirds won the East African Safari Rally outright, a result that carried enormous weight in the markets where durability mattered most, and the 510 became a fixture in Trans-Am and club racing in America, where it remains a staple of vintage grids.

Datsun Bluebird · TTTNIS · Public domain

Legacy

Later cars moved to front-wheel drive in 1983 and grew steadily softer and more anonymous as the badge splintered by region. Production in Japan ended in 2001, and in China in 2007, with the name's various jobs inherited by the Altima, Primera, Pintara, Teana and Sylphy depending on where you lived.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1955–2001

Body

4-door Sedan

Technical specification

The Bluebird, in detail.

Production: 1955–2001 (until 2007 in China)
Class: Compact car
Body style: 4-door Sedan (automobile); sedan ; 4-door hardtop sedan ; 2-door coupé ; 5-door station wagon
Layout: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout; Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (1955–1983) ; Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout; Front-engine, front-wheel-drive (1983–2007) ; Front-engine, four-wheel-drive layout; Front-engin
Manufacturer: Nissan

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Badge at launch