Subaru

Subaru  is the automobile manufacturing division of Japanese transportation conglomerate Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), the twenty-sixth biggest automaker by production worldwide in 2011.

Subaru is known for its use of the boxer engine layout in most of its vehicles above 1500 cc as well as its use of the all wheel drive drive-train layout since 1972, with it becoming standard equipment for mid-size and smaller cars in most international markets as of 1996, and now standard in most North American market Subaru vehicles. The lone exception is the RWD BRZ introduced in 2012. Subaru also offers turbocharged versions of their passenger cars, such as the Impreza WRX.

Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru, is currently in a partial partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation, which owns 16.5% of FHI.

Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster (M45, or "The Seven Sisters"), which in turn inspires the Subaru logo and alludes to the companies that merged to create FHI.

FHI started out as The Aircraft Research Laboratory in 1915 headed by Chikuhei Nakajima. In 1932, the company was reorganized as Nakajima Aircraft Company, Ltd and soon became the primary manufacturer of aircraft for Japan during World War II. At the end of the Second World War Nakajima Aircraft was again reorganized, this time as Fuji Sangyo Co, Ltd. In 1946, the company created the Fuji Rabbit motor scooter with spare aircraft parts from the war. In 1950, Fuji Sangyo was divided into 12 smaller corporations according to the Japanese Government's 1950 Corporate Credit Rearrangement Act, anti-zaibatsu legislation, but between 1953 and 1955, four of these corporations and a newly formed corporation Fuji Kogyo, a scooter manufacturer; coachbuilders Fuji Jidosha; engine manufacturers Omiya Fuji Kogyo; chassis builders Utsunomiya Sharyo and the Tokyo Fuji Dangyo trading company decided to merge to form the Fuji Heavy Industries known today.

Kenji Kita, the CEO of Fuji Heavy Industries at the time, wanted the new company to be involved in car manufacturing and soon began plans for building a car with the development code-name P-1. Mr. Kita canvassed the Company for suggestions about naming the P1, but none of the proposals were appealing enough. In the end, he gave the car a Japanese name that he had "been cherishing in his heart": Subaru, which is the name of the Pleiades star cluster in Japanese. The first Subaru car was named the Subaru 1500. Only twenty P1s were manufactured owing to multiple supply issues. From 1954 to 2008, the company designed and manufactured dozens of vehicles including the 1500 (1954), the tiny air-cooled 360 (1958), the Sambar (1961), the 1000 (which saw the introduction of the Subaru boxer engine in 1965), the R-2 (1969), the Rex and the Leone (1971), the BRAT (1978), Alcyone (1985), the Legacy (1989), the Impreza (1993), the Forester (1997), the Tribeca(2005),the Exiga (2008), and the BRZ (2012)....

Subaru of America was established in 1968 in Philadelphia by Malcolm Bricklin and Harvey Lamm. It relocated to Pennsauken, New Jersey, shortly thereafter and moved to its current headquarters in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, when Fuji Heavy Industries acquired full ownership. Subaru of America operates Regional offices, Zone offices and Parts Distribution Centers throughout the United States. Subaru of America also operates Port Facilities on both the West and East coast.

In 1989, Subaru and then-partner Isuzu opened a joint factory in Lafayette, Indiana, called Subaru-Isuzu Automotive, Inc., or SIA, which initially manufactured the Subaru Legacy and Isuzu Rodeo. In 2001, Isuzu sold their stake in the plant to FHI for $1 due to flagging sales and it was renamed Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. SIA has been designated a backyard wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation and has achieved a zero-landfill production designation (the first automotive assembly plant in the United States to earn that designation).