Masujiro Hashimoto founded the Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works in 1911, responsible for producing the DAT car and later, trucks and Datsun cars. Beginning in 1918, their first trucks were produced for the military. They merged with Jitsuyo Jidosha Seizo and created the first Datsun car. In 1928, Yoshisuke Aikawa founded the holding company Nihon Sangyon, which was abbreviated in the 1930s to Nissan. In 1931, Seizo became affiliated with Tobata Casting, a Nissan company, and began manufacturing Nissan cars. They inherited Kubota’s (a heavy machinery and tractor manufacturer) chief designer, American engineer William R. Gorham, who has been considered the real founder of the Nissan Motor Company. In the 1950s, they began to expand globally due to their compact Datsun cars; by the 1970s, they had become one of the world’s largest exporters of cars, due in part to consumer desire to use high-quality small economy cars after the 1973s oil crisis.
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