Looking for vehicle specifications? Compare cars or decode a VIN.

Compare cars brands

Explore their origins, identifying marks and logo archives side by side.

First brand

Second brand

Latest archived mark · 2018

Mazda

Explore full logo history →

Latest archived mark · 2020

Nissan

Explore full logo history →

What we compare	Mazda	Nissan
Country in archive	Japan	Japan
Founded	January 30, 1920	1933
Founder	Jujiro Matsuda	Yoshisuke Aikawa
Headquarters	Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan	Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Name origin	Mazda's own account says the name comes from Ahura Mazda, described as the god of harmony, intelligence and wisdom from the earliest civilization in West Asia. The company also notes that the name derives from the surname of its founder, Jujiro Matsuda. The name first appeared on the Mazda-Go three-wheeled truck in 1931.	Nissan is a contraction of Nihon Sangyo, the Japanese name of Yoshisuke Aikawa's holding company, which was abbreviated that way on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the 1930s. The automobile business that took the name grew out of Aikawa's group and the earlier DAT and Datsun cars.
Selected models	Cosmo Sport, RX-7, MX-5 Miata, 787B, CX-5, Mazda3	Datsun 240Z, Skyline GT-R, Datsun 510, Silvia, Leaf
Earliest archived brand logo	1920	1933
Latest archived logo	2018	2020
Archived logo assets	15	18

Logo dates are archive labels; symbols dated before a brand's founding are excluded from its earliest-logo date. Asset counts include all archived variants, not just redesigns. A dash means a value is unavailable.

Sources & editorial review