Subaru

There are many car manufacturers that have their origin in airplane makers, and in Japan it is Subaru that has its origin in Nakajima airplanes. Subaru used to be very close with Nissan, but after a while General Motors acquired the shares and Subaru became one of the GM group companies. Once GM released their shares for Subaru, Toyota acquired a part of the shares, and became Subaru's largest shareholder. Subaru does not have a very standing out color of Toyota group compared to Daihatsu or Hino, though still they are one of them. As is symbolized in “Subaru 360”, the unique 660cc mini vehicle, Subaru is very good at manufacturing cars that have unique characteristics. Subaru uses “horizontally opposed” engines, which only Porsche uses other than Subaru nowadays. Subaru also adopts to all of their manufacturing cars what is so called the “symmetrical AWD (4WD)”, which provides excellent road holding. Subaru also adopts drive supporting system called “Eye Sight” earlier than any other car manufacturers. As to the Victory of Impreza, 3 times in a row at the WRC rally, Subaru is one of the memorable car manufacturers in motor sports scenes as well.