Photo credit: Jay Leno's Garage - YouTube

From Road & Track

While Nissan's largest car collection is phish fans are the worstat the

Zama Heritage Car Garage

in Japan, its North American vintage fleet is impressive too, full of Z-Cars, Skylines, Glorias, Patrols, PAOs, Figaros, Roadsters and Pickups. Not to mention Paul Newman's Datsun race cars, and a bunch of other interesting vehicles that aren't even Japanese.

Datsun was founded in 1911, which makes it the oldest Japanese car manufacturer. The first car to wear the Nissan badge emerged in 1933, and when it came time to enter the American market in 1958, the board chose the Datsun badge for this uphill battle. Thanks to the hard work of former Nissan North America CEO Yutaka Katayama-also known as Mr. K., father of the 240Z-by 1983, Nissan had a factory in Tennessee.

Photo credit: Jay Leno's Garage - YouTube

Back in the day, Nissan could only enter the car business through an engineering partnership with Britain's Austin, and so it's no wonder why a 1960 Datsun 110 reminds you a little of a Mini. Datsun's global market sedan was still based on the Austin A50 Cambridge, while for 1960, Americans also got the option of a pickup truck.

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This economy four-door came with a cast iron engine producing 48 horsepower (a near-exact copy of an Austin B-Series engine), as well as a pair of solid axles, four drum brakes, a non-synchromesh first gear, external door hinges, and a handy work light for those moments when you really needed to locate that oil leak under the hood.

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