Friday 30th January 1920

The Toyo Kogyo Company, Ltd., was founded in Hiroshima, Japan. The company’s initial business, the manufacture of synthetic cork products, soon fell on hard times and in early 1921, its creditors appointed a new president, 45-year-old Jujiro Matsuda, who had previously founded his own firearms company, Matsuda Works. Matsuda took Toyo Cork Kogyo in new directions, including the manufacture of machine tools and a brief stint at building motorcycles. In 1931, Toyo Kogyo introduced its first successful motor vehicle: the Mazda-GO DA Type truck, a three-wheeled, cargo-carrying motorcycle, powered by a 500 cc engine.