The earlier Datsuns were some of the most ugly, junky, funny looking cars ever seen on American highways.
I read that in the ‘60s they hired some high priced GM designers to design their next line of cars to make them more in tune with American taste. That was the beginning of the turnaround that led to their success.
Datsun was a name used to market cars in the USA. The company behind Datsun was Nissan but they wouldn’t put the Nissan name on the car line until they were a commercial success - couldn’t lose face you know.
Once the car line was successful they transitioned to the Nisson name.
An old dumb joke is that a Nissan employee was told that they needed a name for their new American line, and they needed it tomorrow...and he replied “Dat soon?”