Tanaka Heavy Industries

Tanaka Heavy Industries

### Key people

Haruto Tanaka - Founder and CEO of Tanaka Heavy Industries (1950-1991)Nobuhiko Tanaka - CEO of Tanaka Heavy Industries (1991-2009)

Kisa Tanaka - CEO of Tanaka Heavy Industries (2009-2015)

Akira Tanaka - CEO of Tanaka Heavy Industries (2016-Present)

Kenji Tanabe - Founder and CEO of Tanaka Racing Division

### Divisions

Tanaka MotorsTanaka Racing DivisionTanaka Commercial VehiclesTanaka Bikes

**Tanaka Heavy Industries** is a multinational company based in Osaka, Japan, known for all sorts of transportations. Tanaka Motors are known for making high-quality and high-performance cars at an affordable price-point. Auxio Automobiles are known for making luxury cars. Tanaka Commercial Vehicles are known to make durable trucks, vans and forklifts. Tanaka Bikes are known for making affordable scooters popular in Asia and superbikes.

## History

Haruto Tanaka was just 25 years old when he opened his first bicycle shop inherited from his uncle's friend after it has been abandoned during World War II. Its original shop name was Nakamura's Bicycle Repair Shop. He changed it to Tanaka Bikes. With his expertise in mechanical things from experience in repairing vehicles in the war, he started hand-building motorcycles. His first bike was the 1951 Tanaka CT10. His business venture into making bikes and bicycles was quite successful.

He saw his customers using cars to bring their broken bicycles or their broken motorbikes to his shop. He started to have a vision, "why not having them drive my products to here?". So, he started making blueprints for a car, together with his engineers and designers. But before he built the car, he revamped the engines of his motorcycles. Starting with the 1958 CT50, its engine was prepared to be modular, so that extra cylinders and other components can be easily added without a major redesign. When the process of for engineering the car began in 1960 (when Tanaka Motors was founded), the engine didn't need to be extensively modified. They just added an extra cylinder and changed a couple of things. The chassis however, was brand new.

In 1962, the Tanaka Satori was born. The Satori proved to be a huge success for Tanaka as it sold 5,000 units at its first year. The Satori proved to be reasonably reliable, very simple, easy to maintain and affordable. With its success, Tanaka made more variants such as the 620 C in the following year and the 700 S in 1964. However, its first real big success was in 1965 when they launched their (now current) longest-running nameplate, the Aventis. The huge success of the Aventis enabled Tanaka Motors to expand to most parts of Asia. In 1967, they launched their first sports car, the C28X, as their halo car. By 1968, Tanaka Motors had expanded to Europe and Africa.

Tanaka Motors entered the US market in 1971 with the 2nd generation Tanaka Aventis and their first midsize sedan, the Azalea for 1971 with US consumers in mind. They were not successful in that market during their first 2 years. However, when the gas crisis hits and Americans needed smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, Tanaka had prosper during those times. The Aventis was perfect for their fuel economy needs and the Azalea was for those who wanted more room and a larger engine. And then the 80s came around and Tanaka had become one of the biggest Japanese car companies thanks to the economy bubble at the time. In the 90s, Tanaka vehicles were sold in almost every single country in the world.

By the time they got to the 2000s, Tanaka had become one of the biggest car company in the world. Even with the financial crisis in the late 2000s, Tanaka was still somewhat strong with their cheaper models such as the Osaka sub-compact hatchback (since 2005) and the Calgary compact SUV (since 1998). Haruto Tanaka’s original bike shop is now the main official headquarters of Tanaka Heavy Industries. Unfortunately he passed away in 2015 at the age of 90 due to a heart attack, but his legacy will continue to move on.