Sweet cars, bad jokes

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Ages ago, when we were young and information came from uncle’s old motoring magazines, there was a list. The list with acronyms of car brands which was hilarious. Well, for an 8 year old it was. But the only ones that have stuck are Lotus: Lots of trouble - usually serious, and Datsun: Driven at top speed until nackered. We’ve looked it up and in fact Datsun really was an acronym of the company partners’ surnames (Den, Aoyama and Takeuchi), with the ‘sun’ bit meant as ‘son’ since the car was their child. Sweet.

Sweet like this Japanese girl and sweet like Datsun’s first cars being exported to the big bad world themselves. Admit it: this Datsun 210 is a great little design in all its simplicity. It meant a breakthrough for the company, too, not in the last place for finishing ‘world’s cruellest rally’ in 1958. It’s the same year this picture was taken, in Los Angeles of all places. That reminds of another youth joke. A novice Japanese automobile company asks a veteran American motor manufacturer to suggest a name for its new car. ‘We need a name no later than tomorrow’, says the Japanese official. ‘That soon?!’, replies the American…

(Text: Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy USC Libraries)
 

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