DATSUN SEVEN ON DISPLAY

A seminal Datsun that once moved Sir Herbert Austin to take legal action has gone on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.

Never sold in the UK, a sole example of Datsun’s Type 14 – the firm’s first mass-produced car – was shipped to the Austin Motor Company in 1935 for the purposes of patent infringement investigation.

Datsun’s earlier Type 11 and Type 12 models bore a strikingly close resemblance to the Austin Seven; despite numerous foreign makers (including Gotha Waggonfabrik/BMW, Rosengart and the American Austin Car Company) signing licensing agreements with Longbridge, no such arrangement existed in Japan.

Thirties Datsuns were powered by 747cc engines perilously close to the Seven’s cubic capacity; for the Type 14, Datsun/ Nissan unveiled an all-new 15hp, 722cc sidevalve unit.

In his 1968 book, The Motor for the Million – The Austin Seven

(1922-1939), R J Wyatt wrote: “It has been said in recent years that the Datsun was nothing less than an exact copy of the Austin Seven and an infringement of the Austin patents. It certainly resembled it closely and Sir Herbert arranged for one to be brought over to England in 1935, but did not seem to be particularly worried about the situation.”

After close deliberation with Austin’s legal team, no action was taken against the designers of the Datsun Type 14. It was never registered for the road and was put into storage.

The Type 14 was a significant car for the fledgling Datsun firm nonetheless. A year earlier, following a corporate merger, Nissan Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (later shortened to Nissan, named after its financiers – NIppon SANgyo) was established and took over production of Datsun vehicles. Automotive historians regard the Type 14 as the birth of the marque we know and recognise today, although cars continued to be made under the Datsun name until 1986.

The Type 14 joins the National Motor Museum’s floor exhibits and can be viewed as part of normal admission. For further details visit: www.beaulieu.co.uk.