Nissan South Africa has announced that it will relaunch the Datsun brand locally in 2014, with the first model to be priced below R100 000.

The announcement was made at a press conference in Johannesburg on Friday. The Datsun brand was phased out in 1981.

Datsun Corporate Vice President, Vincent Cobee, revealed that South Africa would be the fourth country to relaunch the brand, after India, Indonesia and Russia.

"The return of Datsun is integral to our expansion in fast-growing markets where there is a mushrooming upwardly-mobile segment," said Cobee, according to www.moneyweb.co.za.

"Datsun's key values — accessible, reliable and modern — are designed to accommodate the needs and aspirations of this target group, just as it did for similarly optimistic customers in Japan, America and a large part of the world during most of the 20th century."

Cobee refused to be drawn on details of the sub-R100k passenger car, saying only that the company would be "extremely foolish" not to take advantage of Nissan's existing engineering expertise.

In 2012, Nissan SA launched its luxury arm — Infiniti — in South Africa.