70 up since first car
It was 70 years ago when it all began for Suzuki Motor Corporation as Michio Suzuki personally delivered a Suzulight, his first production car, to a local doctor who had previously been conducting his house calls on a bicycle.
He had first started in business much earlier than that in March 1920 with the manufacture of textile looms.
These became more advanced in design and popular right through to the early 1950s when there was a global decline in the cotton industry.
That was when Suzuki decided to diversify into motorised transport with the introduction of his first motorcycle in 1953. The first car followed two years later.
Initial research and development of the Suzulight, pictured above, began as far back as 1937 although this had to be shelved later with the outbreak of World War Two. This project finally resumed in 1954 when Suzuki Motor Co Ltd was formed.
Using the “yaramaika” spirit – embedded in the Enshu region he came from – and his determination to drive forward, Suzuki quickly began researching vehicles produced overseas and gained a wealth of knowledge. “Yaramaika” translates as “let’s do it”.
Then came the Suzulight. It was a compact vehicle three metres in length and weighing just over 500kg. It was powered by a 360cc, 15PS two cylinder, two-stroke engine, the first of its type to be fitted to a car.
It was also the first car in Japan to feature front-wheel drive and a front engine layout. It was way ahead of its time with its independent coil-spring suspension, and rack and pinion steering.
The Suzulight easily met the Japanese “keijidosha”, or kei light-car legislation, and Suzuki and his team quickly got to road-testing it.
As a prototype, its most memorable early drive was a 300km trip across the Hakone mountainous region between Hamamatsu and Tokyo, which proved challenging on roads that had yet to be sealed.
Although arriving very late in the evening, the team presented the car to the president of Yanase Auto, Japan’s leading authority on automobiles. The president had stayed on late to greet the team and made his way out to thoroughly test it.
Several hours later he returned impressed and immediately gave Suzuki full approval to put the Suzulight into production, which commenced in October 1955. Initial production was three to four units per month, but by early 1956 monthly volume had climbed to 30.
Seventy years on, Suzuki Motor Corporation is still referred to as the “small car expert” and produces more than three million units per year with a projection of four million annually by 2030.
Suzuki’s original strategy of design and production of lightweight vehicles lives on with platforms including those used in the Swift, Vitara and S-Cross, and “heartect-e”, which was specifically designed for e-Vitara. Michio Suzuki can be seen in the picture below, from 1954, with his development team for the Suzulight.
