The evolution of automobile manufacturing is intertwined with the major upheavals of the 20th century. The industry grew from a craft serving a limited clientele to a situation of mass production, along the way improving manufacturing quality and working conditions and reducing costs. Today, the automobile industry is a major component of economic growth in all industrialized countries. On a larger scale, changes in the industry reflect changes in society as a whole.

From craft to mass production
Before 1914, automobiles were still a luxury item produced to meet the demands of a select clientele. Cars were virtually tailor-made, often by craftsmen who put their own car bodies over a manufacturer’s engine and chassis. Very quickly, customer demand transformed the craft into a full-fledged industry shaped by the division of labor and the use of specialized machines for each task.

This way of organizing production was first formalized by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who worked as a laborer before becoming an engineer. In 1903, Taylor published Shop Management, in which he developed his theory of the scientific organization of work. The main idea was to break down the production process into its constituent parts and calculate the time needed for each operation in order to improve quality while reducing costs and lead times. This marked the beginning of assembly lines and mass production.

Taylorism also addressed corporate management as a whole in that Taylor believed that an individual could contribute to the general good of the entire company by giving his very best.

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The corporate history of the Mitsubishi Group mirrors the modernization of Japan that began with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The man who laid the cornerstone of the Group in this era was founder Yataro Iwasaki. It was Yataro who, in 1870, established Tsukumo Shokai, a shipping company, and aggressively invested in coal and mineral mining, which grew into a key pillar of operations for Mitsubishi.

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Of Argentina's ten automakers, almost all are closely held subsidiaries or affiliates of their American, European, or Japanese parent organizations. The exception is Renault Argentina S.A., which is traded on the Buenos Aires stock exchange. Once the nation's largest automobile manufacturer, this company now ranks in the middle of the pack, struggling to sell new Renaults and Nissans in a nation badly mauled by economic crisis. Through subsidiaries, Renault Argentina also is engaged in vehicle financing and insurance.

Key Dates:
1955: U.S. industrialist Henry J. Kaiser establishes an auto assembly plant in Argentina.
1960: Industias Kaiser Argentina (IKA) begins assembling Renault autos under license.
1965: IKA is Argentina's leading automobile producer.
1967: IKA rolls out the Torino--built with an Argentine-designed engine, it becomes a classic; Renault purchases a controlling interest in IKA, which becomes IKA Renault.
1971: The Renault 12, Argentina's best-selling car in this decade, is introduced.
1975: IKA Renault is renamed Renault Argentina S.A.
1984: Renault Argentina holds one-third of the Argentine automobile market.
1991: Buffeted by a sour national economy, the company has lost $300 million in three years.
1992: Manuel Fernando Antelo assumes control of the company, which is renamed Ciadea.
1994: Ciadea has enjoyed three consecutive years of healthy profits.
1997: Antelo sells most of his shares in Ciadea, which is renamed Renault Argentina.
2001: The company drops from second to fourth place among Argentine automakers. 

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http://www.renault.com.ar 

With the chimney engine development suspended, Honda had to hasten the work of coming up with the next plan. This turned out to be the Honda company’s first original product to be sold on the market, the Honda A-Type. Compared to the radically innovative chimney design, this appeared to be a rather orthodox 2-stroke engine. However, as Kawashima explains:

“The intake assembly didn’t use the piston valves you saw elsewhere. Instead, it had rotary disk valves attached to the side of the crankcase. Therefore the carburetor was also attached to the crankcase rather than next to the cylinder. At this time, this was revolutionary. I thought the Old Man was incredible to come up with an idea like that.”

Furthermore, the manually-operated belt transmission mechanism that also was used for the clutch was patented. This was just one of the ways in which this product showed itself as a true Honda Motor Co. product. The A-Type engine has not attracted much attention for anything other than its distinction in being the first Honda product. However, looking at it from another angle, it was this A-Type engine that suddenly brought out the extraordinary characteristics of Honda Motor Co.

From this time, in Kawashima’s words, Honda was already beginning to talk about it. “At our shop we used die casting. Unlike sand casting, we had to make metal dies for die casting. This costs money. At the rate we were producing our machines at that time, this couldn’t possibly turn a profit, so ordinary people wouldn’t dream of taking such an approach. They would make do with sand casting. But the Old Man insisted, ‘No matter what, we go with die casting!’”

Thus, the characteristic Honda quality of the A-Type was not in its mechanism so much as in its manufacturing method.

Converting to die casting means producing in volume. Its crude little neighborhood machine shop, no matter how you looked at it, was far removed from a mass-production factory. Regardless of that, and fully aware that in choosing this production method the company might be accused of illusions of grandeur, Honda started out on what it knew was an adventure.

The Honda’s Seven-Year History contains the following passage:

“It was a method of going straight from raw material to the product that did not generate metal shavings, that used less material, that cut down on the number of processes, and resulted in an attractive product. This was the President’s firmly-held view.”

Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha ("Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd." in English) was established on December 26, 1933, taking over all the operations for manufacturing Datsuns from the automobile division of Tobata Casting Co., Ltd., and its company name was changed to Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. on June 1, 1934. The founder was Yoshisuke Aikawa, the brilliant leader of the Nissan combine. He had grand plans to mass-produce 10,000 - 15,000 units per year, and was about to putting his plan into practice.

The first small-size Datsun passenger car rolled off the assembly line at the Yokohama Plant in April 1935, and vehicle exports to Australia were also launched that same year. Datsun cars symbolized Japan's rapid advances in modern industrialization in those days, as evidenced by the contemporary slogan, "The Rising Sun as the flag and Datsun as the car of choice."

Nissan announced on October 18, 1999 the Nissan Revival Plan (NRP), a comprehensive restructuring plan designed to achieve lasting profitable growth on a global level. It accomplished the objectives the NRP by the end of fiscal year 2001, one year ahead of schedule, and posted all-time-high record operating profits. Under the NRP, steadfast efforts were made to enhance product appeal and competitiveness besides cutting purchasing costs and indebtedness. As a result, the all-new Altima won the North American Car of the Year Award in January 2002.

Since this past April, the company has been pushing ahead with "NISSAN 180," a new business plan aimed at achieving additional unit sales of one million vehicles globally in 3 years, among other objectives.

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Literally, the word "volkswagen" means "people's car." In Germany, the idea of a people's car wasn't exactly a new one. Before the 1930's, there had been many efforts to create simple cars that everyone could afford, but none met with profound success. Almost all cars before 1930, even if they were designed to be simple enough for the average person, ended up costing more than the average worker's yearly wage.

Meanwhile, the year is 1930, and Ferdinand Porsche had just set up an automotive design company, which became known as the Porsche Büro. The company patented a sophisticated independent front suspension system, which consisted of transversely mounted torsion bars connected to two trailing arms on each side. At the time, this was lighter than most other common types of suspension. In 1931, a German motorcycle company, Zündapp, asked Porsche if he could design a suitable car for them. Porsche came up with a streamlined 2 door sedan, which had lines similar to the Beetle. It was designated the Type 12. Zündapp wanted to put in a 1.2 liter radial engine from one of their motorcycles...this was the end of the line for this design, as it didn't make it any further.

Porsche then designed a car for NSU in 1933 that was known as the Type 32. This car looked even more similar to the upcoming KdF Wagen than the Type 12 did. This car looked similar to the Tatra V570, and shared many mechanical similarities. After World War II, the Volkswagen company paid Tatra for compensation, since Tatra believed its technology and design was pirated in development of the KdF Wagen. Eventaully, NSU dropped the Type 32 project.

The official Toyota history is, like that of most companies, fairly glossy and bare-bones. An article by Konrad Schreier, printed in the Complete Book of Toyota (a bit of a misnomer since the book is mainly a bunch of reprints of then-current, gushing, “no criticism allowed” car reviews), brings up a large number of missing pieces - as does The Standard Catalog of Imported Cars.

Sakichi Toyoda, a prolific inventor, created the Toyoda Automatic Loom company based on his groundbreaking designs, one of which was licensed to a British concern for 1 million yen; this money was used to help found Toyota Motor Company, which was supported by the Japanese government partly because of the military applications. The Japanese relied on foriegn trucks in the war in Manchuria, but with the Depression, money was scarce. Domestic production would reduce costs, provide jobs, and make the country more independent. By 1936, just after the first successful Toyoda vehicles were produced, Japan demanded that any automakers selling in the country needed to have a majority of stockholders from Japan, along with all officers, and stopped nearly all imports.

Toyoda's car operations were placed in the hands of Kiichiro Toyoda, Sakichi Toyoda’s son; they started experimenting with two cylinder engines at first, but ended up copying the Chevrolet 65-horsepower straight-six, using the same chassis and gearbox with styling copied from the Chrysler Airflow. The first engine was produced in 1934 (the Type A), the first car and truck in 1935 (the Model A1 and G1, respectively), and its second car design in 1936 (the model AA). In 1937, Toyota Motor Company was split off.

From 1936 to 1943, only 1,7,57 cars were made – 1,404 sedans and 353 phaetons (model AB), but Toyoda found more success building trucks and busses. (Some of these early details are from http://www.geocities.com/toyotageek/) The Toyota KB, a 4x4 produced starting in 1941, was a two-ton truck similar to the prewar KC; it had a loading capacity of 1.5 tons and could run up to about 43 mph. The GB was based on the peacetime, 1.5 ton G1 truck, which in turn was based on the Model A1 cars. (From globalspec).

The first Toyoda truck was roughly a one-ton to one and a half-ton design, conventional in nature, using (after 1936) an overhead valve six-cylinder engine that appears to have been a clone of the Chevrolet engine of the time: indeed, a large number of parts were interchangeable, and Toyoda trucks captured in the war were serviced by the Allies with Chevrolet components. There was also a forty-horsepower four cylinder model, very similar to the six cylinder in design but rather underpowered for a truck with a full ton of capacity.

DaimlerChrysler is unique in the automotive industry with products from small cars to sports cars and luxury sedans; and from versatile vans to heavy duty trucks or comfortable coaches. DaimlerChryslers’ passenger car brands include Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Jeep®, Dodge and smart. Commercial vehicle brands include Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star, Setra and Mitsubishi Fuso. It offers financial and other automotive services through DaimlerChrysler Financial Services.

DaimlerChrysler AG--the third-largest car maker in the world--is the product of the November 1998 merger of Daimler-Benz AG of Germany and Chrysler Corporation of the United States. Vehicles built by the resultant powerhouse include Mercedes-Benz luxury passenger cars; a microcompact car sold under the name Smart; Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge cars, pickup trucks, minivans, and sport utility vehicles; and commercial vehicles, including vans, trucks, and buses, under the brand names Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Setra, and Western Star Trucks. The company's revenue stream is heavily weighted toward the United States and Europe--the Mercedes Car Group and the Chrysler Group divisions account for the majority of company sales. The company has been plagued with problems in recent years related partly to its investment in Mitsubishi Motors. Its troubled Chrysler division experienced a $637 million loss in 2003 due to restructuring costs and slowing U.S. sales. In addition to its vehicle manufacturing operations, DaimlerChrysler is a leading provider of information technology services in Germany and offers a variety of financial services--including vehicle sales and leasing financing, dealer financing, and insurance services--primarily in North America and Europe. The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), which is 33 percent-owned by DaimlerChrysler, operates as the world's second-largest aerospace and defense company.

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http://www.daimlerchrysler.com

Key Dates:
1903: Henry Ford sets up shop in a converted wagon factory.
1908: Ford's Model T is introduced.
1922: Lincoln Motor Company is acquired.
1945: Henry Ford II is appointed company president.
1963: Ford Mustang is released.
1985: Ford Taurus is introduced.
1989: Jaguar Cars Ltd. is acquired.
1999: Swedish automaker Volvo is acquired in a $6.45 billion deal.
2001: The company takes a $2.1 billion charge to cover the cost of replacing Firestone tires on its vehicles; William Clay Ford, Jr., is named CEO.


Company History:

As the second-largest automobile company in the world, Ford Motor Company represents a $164 billion multinational business empire. Known primarily as a manufacturer of automobiles, Ford also operates Ford Credit, which generates more than $3 billion in income, and owns The Hertz Corporation, the largest automobile rental company in the world. The company manufactures vehicles under the names Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, and Aston Martin. Ford also maintains controlling interest in Mazda Motor Corporation. Ford's financial stability was shaken in early years of the new millennium as a result of slowing sales, quality issues, and a debacle involving Firestone tires.

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http://www.ford.com

General Motors Company was organized on September 16, 1908 incorporating the Buick Motor Company. Oldsmobile becomes the second company to join General Motors when Olds Motor Works is sold to GM on Nov. 12, 1908. Fisher Body Company was incorporated on July 22, 1908, by Albert, Fred and Charles Fisher and located in Detroit. General Motors purchased Cadillac for $5.5 million on July 29, 1909. Henry M. Leland and his son, Wilfred, are invited to continue operating Cadillac. They do so until 1917, when they leave to form Lincoln Motor Co.

On October 13, 1916, General Motors Corporation was incorporated under Delaware law and acquired all stock of General Motors Company. Consequently, the General Motors Company stock was retired which makes this certificate very desirable.

GM Now

General Motors (NYSE: GM), the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, designs, builds and markets cars and trucks worldwide, and has been the global automotive sales leader since 1931. GM employs about 355,000 people around the world. In 2001, GM set industry sales records in the United States - its largest market - for total trucks and for sport utility vehicles. GM sold more than 1 million SUVs - a first for any automaker. GM also sold more full-size pickup trucks than any other manufacturer since 1978.

GM operates one of the world's largest and most successful financial services companies, GMAC, which offers automotive, mortgage and business financing and insurance services to customers worldwide.

Founded in 1908, GM today has manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries and its vehicles are sold in about 200 countries. In 2001, GM sold more than 8.5 million cars and trucks - more than any other automaker and 15.1 percent of the global vehicle market. GM has four major regional markets: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, Africa and Middle East.

GM cars and trucks are sold under the following brands: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, GMC, Saturn, Hummer, Saab, Opel, Vauxhall and Holden. GM parts and accessories are marketed under the GM, GM Goodwrench and ACDelco brands through GM Service and Parts Operations.

GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in in-vehicle safety, security and information services. It provides more than 2 million subscribers with a variety of services, including automatic notification of air-bag deployment, stolen vehicle location, remote door unlocking, emergency services dispatch, roadside aid, remote diagnostics, route support, and concierge services. OnStar Personal Calling allows drivers to make and receive hands-free, voice-activated, cellular phone calls through a nationwide network. Virtual Advisor gives subscribers access to personalized information in a hands-free, voice-activated manner without screens or displays. OnStar is or will soon be available in most GM vehicles and on select Acura, Audi, Isuzu, Lexus, Subaru and Volkswagen vehicles.

GM's other major subsidiaries are Hughes Electronics Corp., GM Locomotive Group and Allison Transmission Division.

As part of its global growth strategy, the GM Group includes alliances with Fiat Auto SpA, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., Isuzu Motors Ltd. and Suzuki Motor Corp. GM also has strong technology collaborations with Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., and vehicle manufacturing ventures with Toyota and Renault SA.