The Datsun DC-3 was a lightweight

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

produced by

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

and sold under the

Datsun Datsun (, ) was a Japanese automobile manufacturer brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in Marc ...

brand in 1952. Datsun Sports DC-3 02

The series was a predecessor to the Fairlady

sports car A sports car is a type of automobile that is designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as Automobile handling, handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving, and Auto racing, racing capability. Sports cars originated in ...

s, and succeeded the pre-war Road Star. It was powered by the 860 cc Nissan D10

straight-four A straight-four engine (also referred to as an inline-four engine) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout ( ...

engine which produced and could propel the DC-3 to . The side badges read "Datsun 20" (''20'' meaning 20PS).

Leaf spring A leaf spring is a simple form of spring (device), spring commonly used for suspension (vehicle), suspension in wheeled vehicles. Originally called a ''laminated'' or ''carriage spring'', and sometimes referred to as a semi-elliptical spring, e ...

s were used in the suspension, and a three-speed

manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canadian English, Canada, British English, the United Kingdom and American English, the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed ...

was specified. Four people could ride in the DC-3. Only 50 DC-3s were ever built; of these, 30 were sold (the remaining cars were converted back into trucks). A variant of the DC-3 was the Datsun 5147 pickup. According to Masahiro Sekiguchi in their book, "Nissan engineers: The men who took on the Fairlady", the project was originally started by Yamagishi Mitsutake, who worked in Nissan's technical department at their Yoshiwara plant. It's said that Mitsutake had grown unsatisfied with the company's post war direction of only manufacturing trucks. As a result, he began quietly working on this project, taking inspiration from Britain's MG sports cars when designing the body. The frame came from a Datsun truck, as did the running gear. Sadly, Yamagishi Mitsutake died in a traffic accident before the project was finished. Soon after his passing, when the project was discovered, development was taken over by Nissan engineer Shoichi Shidei and designer Yuichi Ota. They made substantial changes to the prototype, such as flipping the frame upside down to lower the ride height, and using sandbags to calculate the cars weight distribution. Despite the engine's meager power output, the early prototype performed well, so much so that the team was given the greenlight to develop a handful of DC-3s. It is said that the DC-3 participated in Japan's first international sports car road race, held in January of 1952 at the former Mobara Airfield in the Chiba prefecture.

References

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DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper ...

Cars introduced in 1952