Times Five

As Suzuki hits 100, Damien O’Carroll looks at some of its major milestones in that time.

First motor (1952)

Suzuki’s first motor was an auxiliary motor for a bicycle called the Power Free, which was launched in 1952. A 36cc auxiliary motor for a bicycle that produced a stonking 0.7kW of throbbing power, to be precise.

The idea for the Power Free came from Shunzo Suzuki, a company director at the time.

Suzuki would regularly ride his bicycle to go fishing and struggle with the strong seasonal headwinds in Hamamatsu, where the company was based, thinking to himself ‘‘it would be so much easier if this bike had an engine . . .’’

Regulations had just been freed up to allow anyone to ride motorised bicycles after taking a simple course, which launched the Power Free, to immediate success.

First car (1954)

The company changed its name to the Suzuki Motor Company Ltd in 1954 and finally achieved founder Michio Suzuki’s long-held dream of expanding beyond looms into car manufacture with the launch of the Suzulight.

The Suzulight was initially available in three body shapes, a sedan, a pickup and a light van, although the sedan was dropped after a short time on sale. A larger Delivery Van appeared in 1955.

Suzuki had planned to get into the car game far earlier though. A prototype was built in 1937, however, this coincided with the start of World War II and Suzuki had to step back from automobile manufacturing.

First EV (1970)

It hasn’t had the resources to dive into the electric car arena in a big way now, but Suzuki was actually ahead of the curve and revealed its first EV in 1970, at Expo 70 held in Osaka, Japan. The EV was based on the Carry Van designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and was used to ‘‘patrol the facilities within the venue’’.

Giugiaro’s distinctive angular design – he designed the first Volkswagen Golf, various Alfa Romeos and the DeLorean DMC-12 – was a bit much for the traditionally conservative Japanese commercial van buyer, but it looks particularly appropriate as an EV, we think.

First hydrogen car (1977)

We currently have the Hyundai Nexo, Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity all available (in one way or another) in parts of the world, but Suzuki did the whole hydrogen car thing back in 1977. Although it wasn’t quite the same as hydrogen cars we know today.

Suzuki developed the Musashi 3 in collaboration with Tokyo City University which was, as its name suggests, the third in TCU’s Musashi hydrogen vehicle projects (it would eventually develop 10, the last in 1997).

But rather than using a hydrogen fuel cell to power electric motors as today’s hydrogen cars do, the Musashi 3 used a two-stroke engine that drank liquid hydrogen for propulsion and used spark ignition and in-cylinder injection.

First Swift (2004)

The Swift name has been used on a wide range of international versions of the small Cultus hatch sold in Japan (globally it was sold as the Suzuki Forsa, Chevrolet Swift, Chevrolet Sprint, Geo Metro, Pontiac Firefly, Maruti 1000, Subaru Justy and, of course, the Holden Barina) and as an odd semi-SUV thing, but it wasn’t until the second generation (which could have been the third, depending on where in the world you were) car that a legend was born.

Introduced in 2004, the Swift was an instant global success for Suzuki, with sales doubling the company’s projections in its home market. Of course, it has also been a massive success here in New Zealand, too.