The Datsun brand was sold in Central Africa before the Nissan name was advertised there. The estate cars and vans (pickups) were good workhorse and rugged, no worse than any other for corrosion. The climate was generally dry, with the rainy season from November until March, so there was no need to have too good a paint finish

The Mine I worked for had a fleet of small Honda pickups and they certainly rusted. A number needed to be resprayed.

In the late 70s I worked on a computer (IT wasn't born then) project for car spares stock control for a chain of BL dealerships switching to Datsun. Part of the sizing spec was to ask the Datsun management how much of the stock the dealerships would have to hold for warranty repairs. They held 35% to 40% for the BL warranty repairs. Less than 1% was the reply. And thats how it worked out over the next few years. The size of the project necessitated we buy some Datsun cars which we did, Bluebird estates for field engineers. Complete with fitted radios and electric windows. All completely reliable for 2 years, 100k miles and less time off the road than the Fords and Vauxhalls also on the fleet. We also used to maintain computers in BL Cowley and if you turned up in anything non BL you were diverted to park in the f***hest car park and were rudely and shoddily dealt with every time.

Actually that was true of most manufacturers and quite possibly still is. Turn up at their place in a competitors' product and you got sent to hide it in the staff car park with the heaps.

When the Nissan gearbox factory exploded, it rained Datsun cogs.