[HISTORY 01] The Beginning of Aichi

Our founder, Sakujiro Suzuki, was born in Tochigi Prefecture in 1916. When he was a child, he saw a workman electrocuted while working on a power line plunge to the ground in a ball of flames. This experience was the starting point of his awareness. During the war, he fully realized the difference in the mechanical power available overseas. After the war, seeing the diverse mechanized vehicles of the occupation forces will convince him that “these machines are exactly what will play the leading role in the recovery of Japan.” However, the big Japanese manufacturers were not making much of an effort to produce laborious specially-equipped vehicles and mechanization had not proceeded very far. So Suzuki began to make pole setters himself. Through his own efforts, he sold his product throughout Japan. The response was great and strengthened his desire to “make work more efficient and improve safety through mechanization.” It was shortly after this that he started Aichi Sharyo.