Founded: 1896
Kawasaki founder: Shozo Kawasaki
Kawasaki headquarters: Minato, Japan
Official website: www.kawasaki.com
The Kawasaki company is the Japanese corporation, which produces motorcycles, vehicles, different other means of transport and various appliances. The company was created in 1896 by Shozo Kawasaki. Its headquarters are in Kobe and Tokyo.
Kawasaki Logo Meaning and History
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. is a huge industrial concern, for which the production of motorcycles is only one of many types of activity. The unit Kawasaki Motorcycle Corporation engages in the production of motorcycles. It was set up in 1963, after absorption by Kawasaki of the Meguro company, which dealt with motorcycles. Before that, companies just cooperated. The coalescence allowed to achieve new results in the market.
In the distant 1878, the businessman from Japan (Shozo Kawasaki) founded a shipbuilding firm. He found out by his own experience that the Europeans knew much more about vessels, and therefore, used European shipbuilding technology. In 1896, the firm expanded and became the Dock company.
The success of the newly-formed company was related to the receipt of large orders from the Japanese army, which over time took the firm to the level of the main supplier of military articles. It was because the Chinese-Japanese war broke out in 1894. Later, besides construction of vessels, the company dealt with sea shipping. In 1897, the first cargo and passenger ship that carried the name of Iiomaru was floated out.
In 1901, with the beginning of the Russian-Japanese war, the command of navy commissioned the construction of submarines to the Kawasaki company. Kawasaki’s engineers developed their own technical decisions.
In 1908, in a private shipyard, Kawasaki produced the 100-ton ship Yodo, which marked the beginning of large shipbuilding.
By the beginning of the ХХth century, the firm expanded its sphere of activity and engaged in the production of locomotives, passenger cars, and goods wagons, as well as of steam turbines.
In 1907, the first steam locomotive with a bunker for coal was produced. After which, the Ministry of Japan expressed its respect and recognition to the Kawasaki company, which strongly influenced the further development of train services.
By the 20s, the Kawasaki corporation completely mastered steel rolling technology and engaged in the production of airplanes and spares. In 1922, the first metal airplane was assembled at the plant of Hyogo. By the 1930-1940s, the company engaged seriously in cargo automobile industry and the production of component spares.
In the 50s, Kawasaki assembled the first experimental motorcycle engine. Later, the two-cycle engine 58 cm³ of working volume was produced, which was intended to installation on bicycles. The motorcycle debut for the Kawasaki firm took place in 1957 with the production of the model Meihazu125. Later the company produced the racing motorcycle Kawasaki 125 B8, which won a gold medal at a championship in Japan.
The first motorcycle from the class “super motorcycle” – Kawasaki GPZ-900R, which even now is very popular, was produced in 1983.
The company greeted the new ХХIst century with the production of the entire spectrum of models existing in the market (as it did for many years), at the same time emphasizing that for the moment, as from the very beginning, the make Kawasaki has implied the high quality.
Kawasaki logo description
Some time ago, the logo of the Kawasaki company was presented by the graphical letters of its name. There were white letters on the black background with green stripes below as one of the corporate images for Kawasaki from 2011. The actual status of this logo is obsolete. It means this emblem is used by the company no more.
In 2014, the new Kawasaki bike (Kawasaki Ninja H2) was represented on the motorcycle show Intermot 2014. It was shown with the logo, which had been used long ago (in the 60s of the XXth century): the one with the white flag on the black background and a special symbol inside it. It means the old classical Kawasaki logo was restored.
