The Most Popular Japanese Car Companies

Japanese car companies make up the bulk of the major players in Japan’s economy and their products have reached far and wide, from the busiest cities in the United States and the United Kingdom to the most unforgiving desert terrain of Africa and dense jungles of Asia. Japanese automakers have been known to come up with well-engineered vehicles that are highly reliable and fuel efficient. Here is a list of the most popular automotive manufacturers in Japan.

Toyota
One of the most well-loved and trusted brands of the automotive industry, Toyota has been producing cars since the Thirties when it was first a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. Its first production car was called the Toyota AA and its newest concept release is the Corolla Furia. The Camry is the brand’s bestselling car in the United States, while the Corolla is the top-selling car in the whole world, exceeding the sales of the Volkswagen Beetle. Lexus is Toyota’s brand of luxury vehicles and is Japan’s bestselling make when it comes to premium cars.

Honda
Primarily known as motorcycle makers, Honda showed their four-wheel prowess with their first production car, the S500, released in 1963. The company has since made plenty of other models that impressed motorists all over the world. The most popular Honda models include the Civic, Accord, Odyssey, Fit, and CR-V. Honda engineers also developed a humanoid robot they named ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility.

Mazda
Included in the list of the most popular Japanese car companies is Mazda, which started out as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. in Hiroshima. Jujiro Matsuda was the company’s first president, whose name was said to be one of the sources of the current brand name. The other basis is the name of a god of one of the earliest West Asian civilizations. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the god of wisdom, intelligence, and harmony. Mazda first ventured into the production of three-wheeled truck before moving on to four-wheeled ones!

Nissan
Nissan became the second largest Japanese automotive brand in 2011 next to Toyota. It also marketed vehicles under the brand Datsun. Established in 1933, Nissan Motor Co. manufactures cars in 20 countries around the world including Japan. The Nissan Leaf introduced in 2010 is a purely electric car that won that year’s Green Car Vision Award and the following year’s World Car of the Year award.

Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi is actually a conglomerate of different business industries, and auto manufacturing is just part of that umbrella group. Mitsubishi Motors, the division focused on auto manufacturing and sales, has been in the business since 1917 when the Model A was introduced by the then-Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.

Subaru
Subaru is another of the Japanese car companies that are under a bigger business conglomerate, this time under Fuji Heavy Industries. The seven stars seen on the brand logo stand for the Pleiades star cluster, which is “Subaru” in Japanese. The Subaru Impreza WRX is one of the most popular high-performance cars sold today.

Those are the biggest and most popular Japanese car companies in the world today. If you are in the market for an affordable and reliable vehicle, you won’t go wrong with going for a Japanese model.