120y

Not surprising really as Datsun 'borrowed' many designs from BMC over the years; in fact it was Longbridge fussiness after the war when the Japs were building copies of BMC cars that created the fantastic quality control details they later used against us! and seeing as Hyundai started with two Marinas to copy from, I suspect there was a flow of information between the companies over the years......
Oh yes. I passed a brown coupe going in the opposite direction yesterday near Beccles - I think it was an R or S reg...any takers?

I just bought one today its a 1973 Lreg datsun 1200 b110 with 32,000 genuine miles and 1 owner from new mustard colour

PS: Heres a link to a dedicated site.... may be many more answers here.
www.datsun1200.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=7989

Time for a little bit of history ...

Nissan signed an agreement on December 4th 1952 to produce Austin cars in Japan which they did until December 1959. It was actually Austin who approached Nissan initially with a view to getting Austins assembled in Japan. They built over 20,000 Austin A40's and A50's in that time. The cars Nissan built under the aggreement were not 'copies', they were actually Austins and were sold as Austins. In fact the first cars sold there were CKD units shipped from England. Nissan took part in the deal as they desperately needed technological help to compete with Toyota. In return for assembling Austins, Nissan was provided with new technology and the rights to use that technology on there own products.

This agreement provided Nissan with the rights to build the BMC B series angines which were used in their late 50's and early 60's cars in slightly improved form. Nissan further developed this engine through to become their J series unit which was used until about 1980.

The reality is that Nissan never 'borrowed' anything from BMC and never really copied anything either. The technology they aquired from BMC in the 50's was done so with BMC's blessing. In certain respects, until the mid 1960's, Nissan's technology, much like the rest of the Japanese motor industry, was somewhat behinc the rest of the world. Nissan's huge technical advances in the late 60's were actually thanks to the Prince Motor Company which they absorbed in '66.

If you actually compare Nissans own products with those of BMC you will find very little technical similarity, aside from the BMC derived engines used in the early 60's and some structural resemblance of the 30 model cedric to the Austin A50. I'm sure had Nissan wished to merely copy the British, they might well have managed to produce a FWD car a little earlier. As it is, they didn't do so until 1970.

Nissan's agreement with Austin, was actually indended to remove the need for copying other manufacturers products, then changing them slightly to avoid patent infringements, something which Toyota actually did do quite freely. Due to this, Nissan gained no advantage over Toyota in the end so they might as well have not bothered and just gone the same route as Toyota rather that doing it all above board!

You're welcome.