Mitsubishi Motors was an automotive company ranked No. 4 in Japan and No. 13 in the world by unit sales in 2007.
History
Mitsubishi started to produce cars in 1937 when the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a holding company of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation was first launched Mitsubishi PX33 with four-wheel drive technology which also makes it an automotive manufacturer who first launched the vehicle had four wheel drive on Japan.
In 1934, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding was merged with the Mitsubishi Aircraft Co., a company founded in 1920 to manufacture aircraft engines and other parts. The unified company was known as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), and was the largest private company in Japan. MHI focused on the manufacture of aircraft, ships, cars and machinery, but in 1937 developed the PX33, a prototype sedan for military use. It was the first Japanese car built in full-time four-wheel drive, a technology company would amount to about fifty years later, in their pursuit of career and sales success.
Immediately after the end of World War II, the company returned to manufacturing vehicles. Fuso bus production resumed, while a small three-wheeled vehicle called the Mizushima and cargo scooter called the Silver Pigeon were also developed. But Zaibatsu (Japanese family-controlled industrial conglomerates) were ordered to be wound up by the Allied Powers in 1950, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was split into three regional companies, each with an involvement in motor vehicle development: West Japan Heavy-Industries, Central Japan Heavy-Industries, and East Japan Heavy-Industries.
East Japan Heavy-Industries began importing Henry J, an inexpensive American sedan built by GM Kaiser, removable kit (CKD) form, in 1951, and continued to bring them to Japan for the rest of the car cycle production of three years. That same year, Central Japan Heavy-Industries concluded a similar agreement with Willys (now owned by Kaiser) for CKD-assembled Jeep CJ-3BS. This agreement has proved more durable, with licensed Mitsubishi Jeeps in production until 1998, thirty years after the Willys had replaced the model.
In 1960, the beginning of the Japanese economy was coming, wages were rising and the idea of family motoring was taking off. Central Japan Heavy Industries, now known as Shin-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, had returned to create a department of the car in his seat in 1953. He was now ready to introduce the Mitsubishi 500, a mass market sedan, to meet changing consumer demands. This was followed in 1962 with the kei car Minica Colt 1000, the first of its range of family cars Colt in 1963.
West Japan Heavy-Industries (now renamed Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering) and East Japan Heavy Industries (now Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-Nihon) also expanded its automotive departments in the 1950's, and three were re-integrated as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1964. In three years, its production was more than 75,000 vehicles a year. Following the successful introduction of the first Galant in 1969 and similar growth with its commercial vehicles division, it was decided that the company should create a single operation to focus on the automotive industry. Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) was formed April 22, 1970 as a wholly owned subsidiary of MHI, under the leadership of Tomio Kubo, a successful engineer in the aircraft division.
The logo of three red diamonds, shared with over forty other companies within the keiretsu, pre Mitsubishi Motors itself by almost a century. He was chosen by Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi, because it was the emblem of the Tosa clan suggests he was the first employee, and because his own family crest was three rhombuses stacked. The Mitsubishi name is a portmanteau of mitsu ("three") and hishi (literally, "water chestnut", often used in Japanese to denote a diamond or diamond)
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