Production chronology1950–1954
Sourced production or model lifecycle range used by the main catalog timeline.
Wikipedia infobox ↗5 years
← Datsun
Datsun / Model record
DatsunDS Series
Production1950–1954
Recorded originJapan
ClassAutomobile
Background
The Datsun DS series was introduced in 1950 as the replacement for the Datsun DA. It used Datsun's truck chassis, itself based on pre-war Datsun designs closely based on the Austin Seven. A more luxurious range with the same truck underpinnings, called the DB series, was sold in parallel. With Datsun's own manufacturing resources being limited, they built the chassis and outsourced the manufacture of the bodies: the sparser "Thrift" (DS) series received bodies built by Suminoe Manufacturing, while the ponton-bodied Deluxe models were bodied by Central Japan Heavy-Industries' Ryowa Body subsidiary.
Text adapted from “Datsun DS series” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗ · retrieved 2026-07
Chronology ledger
Dates with their meaning intact
Record depth — Documented
How this is measured → This record contains useful sourced evidence, but it does not yet meet the reference-ready standard. Still needed: technical or production facts, attributed imagery. Fields we cannot source stay empty rather than guessed.