Japan’s first attempt at selling cars to Britons went spectacularly badly. The tiny Daihatsu Compagno – which to the casual observer resembles any other small saloon from the Sixties – was technically pretty competent and moderately well-received by European critics. Yet it was too expensive and too slow to attract buyers away from British or Continental marques.
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The UK s rarest cars: Datsun Sunny 1000, one of only three left on British roads
The ultra conventional Sunny 1000 rivalled the Ford Escort and was the first Datsun for the British market
22 January 2021 • 6:00am
In June of 1968 Nissan-Datsun Concessionaires of Shoreham took delivery of the six models that represented a cross-section of the company’s line-up. The largest was the 2000 Cedric Saloon while the smallest was a B10-Series 1000 Sunny, registration OKJ 213 F, which is now the property of Mark Ashbridge.
The Daihatsu Compagno of 1964 was the first British-market Japanese car, but imports were in single figures. Three years later, Toyota and Honda had cars on sale in the UK, and Mazda GB was commencing operations, but the total sales of Japanese cars for 1967 still amounted to less than 2,000. British Nissan sales were initially under the auspices of the former NSU importer Octav Botnar with the early dealerships often compromising small family-run firms.