The charismatic former Suzuki boss, who helped the Japanese compact car specialist become a globally competitive company, has died at the age of 94 from malignant lymphoma, the company announced on Friday. business.
Osamu Suzuki was CEO of the company in 1978 and served as CEO, president or president until 2021, when – already 90 years old – he resigned and took on an advisory role.
The beginning of his tenure coincided with some very important milestones in Suzuki’s expansion beyond the Japanese car market, such as the launch of the small Alto city car in 1979, which would move on to the older, best-selling Suzuki. car of all time. .
Also, while other Japanese manufacturers looked to markets like Europe, the Americas and later China for expansion, Osamu Suzuki’s first big international play was in India. In 1980, his company decided to partner with the Indian government and its struggling Maruti company.
The move was risky but the partnership worked. Suzuki has sold roughly one third of all its cars in India, making India comfortably the company’s most important market outside Japan.
The company was consistently among the top 10 sellers of motorcycles worldwide during most of Osamu Suzuki’s tenure, and also a key player in motorcycle racing in Japan and beyond.
The company was founded by Patriarch Michio Suzuki in 1909. Initially it specialized in the manufacture of looms, a design specialty of the engineer Suzuki.
In the 1930s, Michio Suzuki sought to diversify corporate and well-known private transportation, i. e. , motorized bicycles or motorcycles, as a promising avenue for expansion.
However, during World War II, the Japanese government banned the company from making investments in “non-essential civilian production,” so its plans were abandoned.
Soon after the war, with its loom business under threat from automation and other advancements, Suzuki hurriedly returned to his transportation blueprints.
The first product destined for post-war Japan, still decimated, almost a precursor of an electric bicycle: an undisputed bicycle equipped with a small two-stroke gasoline engine with constant braking force for additional thrust: the Suzuki Power Free.
Michio was also ahead of its time with its first car, the SuzuLight, which anticipated Japanese demand for super-compact “kei” cars, designed for use in giant cities with busy roads and not enough parking space.
Born Osamu Matsuda in 1930, Suzuki worked in banking after graduating from Tokyo’s Chuo University School of Law.
He joined Suzuki Motor in 1958, after marrying one of the patriarch’s granddaughters, Shoko Suzuki. This a year after Michio stepped down as president and joined the advisory board.
Michio’s family empire had no children waiting in line, so Osamu took the name Suzuki and began working his way up the corporate ladder.
During the intervening years, three other adopted sons had stints at the top of Suzuki, but none enjoyed the success or longevity Osamu would on taking charge in 1978.
Known for his jovial nature and candid remarks, he did not shy away from the company’s focus on the smaller, budget end of the car market.
He also claimed that Suzuki was behind Japanese giants such as Honda and Toyota in terms of sales, calling himself “the old man of a small or medium-sized company. ”
msh/dj (AP, dpa)