CarBrandLogos archive · Nissan · 1966

NissanSunny

Named by public ballot, built to fight the Corolla for forty years.

Photo: TTTNIS · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in Nissan history.

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

Origins

Nissan ran a national competition to name its new small car in 1966 and received millions of entries. The winner was Sunny, and the car went on sale within months of the Toyota Corolla, which set up the other great Japanese rivalry of the era. Toyota's answer was to give the Corolla a slightly larger engine and advertise the difference, and the two firms leapfrogged each other on capacity for years.

1972 Datsun Sunny B110 GX-5, front left · TTTNIS · Public domain

Design and engineering

Abroad it wore whatever name suited: Datsun 1000, 1200, 120Y, later Sentra and Pulsar in various markets. The lightweight B110 coupe of the early 1970s, with its rev-happy A-series four, became a tuning favourite in Japan and still is.

1974 Datsun 120Y coupe · OSX · Public domain

In production

The car did what a small saloon is supposed to do. It was cheap, it started, and it took Japanese manufacturing into driveways in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, where its reputation for surviving neglect did more selling than any advertisement.

1971 Datsun 1200 Saloon · Riley from Christchurch, New Zealand · CC BY 2.0

Legacy

In its home market the name gave way to the Tiida and Sylphy, but Nissan has kept using it elsewhere, and versions have continued in production long after the Japanese original was retired.

At a glance