Meet the Datsun Baby, the Tiny Car Nissan Built for Kids to Drive

Kei Car Turned Theme Park Ride

Some theme parks let us drive at an early age. Whether it’s with go-karts, pedal cars, or bumper cars, it’s a way of getting kids behind the wheel. Surely, some of you have fun memories of doing so, but there was once a time when an amusement park let children drive an actual car.

We’ll take you back to the ’60s to the opening of the Kodomonokuni amusement park in Yokohama. Now, Yokohama is also home to Nissan, which donated 100 kei cars to the park for children and visitors.

Meet the Datsun Baby

Say hello to the Datsun Baby, and, as mentioned, 100 of these were built for the amusement park. The car was pretty clever for its era. It was mid-engined, rear-wheel drive, and even had an automatic transmission and a spring-loaded power steering system.

It was powered by a 199cc two-stroke engine, rated at 7.4 hp and 9.7 lb-ft of torque, making the Jetour Ice Cream we drove last time around look like a hot hatch. And to ensure young speed demons won’t get into a massive accident, it had a 19 mph speed limiter. Interestingly, the car even had four-wheel independent suspension. Not even the Nissan Skyline from the same era had that.

It followed kei car dimension regulations, too. The Baby just measured 116.5 inches long, 55.9 inches wide, and 49 inches tall. It then rode on a 65.7-inch wheelbase, or about five and a half feet.

It Was Based on Another Kei Car

The Datsun Baby wasn’t developed from the ground up using Nissan’s R&D department just for it to be destined for an amusement park. The reason it had those specs is that it was based on the Cony Guppy. If you’ve never heard of that car before, it’s totally understandable.

Before being turned into a theme park ride, the Cony Guppy was manufactured by Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd. Prior to that, it was an aerospace company, but shifted to automobile and automobile parts manufacturing after World War 2. The Cony Guppy was Aichi’s first car, and was only made in 1961.

Aichi was then absorbed by Nissan in 1966, and the business still remains as a parts supplier for the automaker. A little fun fact, Aichi would later develop the Nissan Sunny, which we now know today as the Nissan Sentra. But back to the Cony Guppy: Nissan used leftover production parts, redesigned the body, and built 100 Datsun Baby models from them – mostly by hand.

Its Main Purpose

According to Nissan, the Datsun Baby was built to “provide children with knowledge about automobiles and promote road safety.” Given that the park was in the company’s backyard, one can say it was its way of supporting its home community. At the same time, it was giving back to Yokohama by providing more amusement and education to its residents.

What’s interesting here is that the cars weren’t on rails. Those who drove it actually had full control. There was a dedicated course for it, too, but we’re assuming the children would be accompanied by an adult in the vehicle at all times. Just to be extra safe, there was a brake pedal on the passenger side. If all else failed, there was the steel skirt surrounding the lower half of the car to prevent further damage.

The ride ran from 1965 to 1973 and was a fun, immersive way to learn about cars and driving in one’s formative years. Car 100 was displayed in the park when the ride was retired and was subsequently restored by Nissan decades later to commemorate the park’s 50th anniversary. That same car is back in the company’s hands, though we’re genuinely curious whether any of the other 99 are still around.