On January 30, 1920, Jujiro Matsuda founded a company called Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. in Hiroshima, Japan, initially operating as a cork-making factory. A little over a decade later, Toyo Cork Kogyo transitioned into vehicle production, and here Mazda was born.
Jujiro Matsuda, born in 1875, was the son of a fisherman. Before leading Toyo Cork Kogyo, By 1921, Matsuda had accumulated significant wealth owing to his previous business ventures. After that he decided to move back to Hiroshima and took over a struggling company that produced cork products and reorganized it. At the time, the company focused on manufacturing cork for insulation and packing materials.
Image Credit: Mazda
By the mid 1920s, Toyo Cork Kogyo moved away from cork and toward manufacturing machinery. And in 1927, he changed the name of the company to Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd.
The first step into producing vehicles came in 1931 with the Mazda-Go, a three-wheeled auto-rickshaw or truck. It looked like a motorcycle with a cargo carrier attached to the back.
It was during this time that the name Mazda was first used. The name was inspired by Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of harmony, intelligence, and wisdom.
The company’s home in Hiroshima faced a devastating tragedy during World War II when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city in 1945. Remarkably, the Toyo Kogyo factory was located behind a hill that protected it from the bomb. The plant survived and even served as a center for relief efforts and local government operations after the war as Matsuda offered its usage for the Hiroshima bureau of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation.
By the 1960s, the company launched its first real passenger car, the R360 coupe. This era also marked the company’s famous decision to develop the Wankel rotary engine as a way to differentiate itself from other Japanese automakers.
Cork made its way back to the company as Youichi Matsuda and his team decided to use it as part of the first battery electric car MX-30 interior design as it was chosen for the interior lining.
Mazda MX-30, Chief Designer, Youichi Matsuda said: “when Toyo Cork Kogyo was created, technologies in plastics and rubber had not been developed as far as they are today, so cork was used as an alternative material for gaskets and walls back then. But after World War Two, production of rubber and plastics on an industrial scale meant cork gradually took a backseat as a large-scale industrial material. But with it occupying such a significate place in Mazda’s history it’s only right we chose it for the MX-30 cabin”.
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