Photo/Illutration Visitors take pictures of historic and valuable Nissan cars at the Nissan Heritage Collection gallery in the city of Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. The facility exhibits about 300 cars dating as far back as the 1930s. (Photo by Lisa Vogt)

The perfect-pitch sound--not too heavy and not too light--of the door shutting. The soft click of the switches and the light touch of the leather-like five-speed shift knob.

The sublime springiness of the clutch and the sound of the engine when accelerating. I remember vividly the day my brand-new 1990 Nissan Silvia Q arrived. I loved that car.

Visiting the Nissan Heritage Collection at the old Nissan Zama Assembly Plant was a drive down memory lane. On permanent exhibit are about 300 passenger cars, trucks, vans, electric vehicles, taxis, fire engines, police cruisers and racing cars displayed in chronological order starting with the Lila built in 1923 and progressing to the latest zero-emissions Leaf.

Nissan is no novice at making EVs. The Tama, a two-seater electric truck, was on the market more than seven decades ago, in 1947. It had a range of about 65 kilometers on a full charge, and a top speed of 35 kph, which back in the day was impressive!

In 1911, Masujiro Hashimoto founded the automobile company Kaishinsha, meaning to “pleasantly and speedily advance,” in Tokyo’s Azabu area. The company produced its first vehicle in 1914 and named it DAT after the first initial of three investors in the company, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi.

In 1926, the company changed its name to DAT Motorcar, which merged with Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., or “the utility car company,” and became DAT Jidosha Seizo, “the manufacturer of DAT.”

In 1932, the spelling was changed to Datson, meaning “the son of DAT.” “Datson” was then changed to “DatSUN” because “SON” sounded the same as a word meaning “loss” in Japanese. “SUN” had brighter associations when the car went on sale. In 1934, the company changed its name to Nissan Motor. Whew! This is the company’s history in a nutshell.

Also on display is the Prince Sedan. “Prince” was named after the ceremonial investiture of then-Crown Prince Akihito in 1952. Akihito purchased the model after seeing it in 1954 at the first Tokyo Motor Show that was held in Hibiya Park. The hood ornament is a flying fish.

The first export model of the Datsun Fairlady, a convertible, must have been many a guy’s dream car. For the ladies, the “Fancy Deluxe” Bluebird came with a pastel interior, high-heel shoe holder, vanity mirror and turn signals with music.

I joined both the English and Japanese tours. The difference? At the end of the Japanese tour, a woman holding pom-poms sits propped up in the back seat of a convertible posing for photos.

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This article by Lisa Vogt, a Washington-born and Tokyo-based photographer, originally appeared in the Jan. 19 issue of Asahi Weekly. It is part of the series "Lisa’s In and Around Tokyo," which depicts the capital and its surroundings through the perspective of the author, a professor at Meiji University.