TexasGunRunner

I was curious why Mazda changed their logo in the mid 90's.

Another hobby of mine is collecting Pacific Theatre (PTO)World War II rifles. I have a number of Arisaka (Japanese) rifles. All Japanese rifles are stamped with a mark to identify the arsenal.

The earlier Mazda logo looks like a slightly stylized version of the Nagoya arsenal logo.

Nagoya Arsenal logo

In looking, I was reminded that there was another manufacturer that suddenly had a name I recognized - Toyo Kogyo (Toyo Manufacturing Company) of Hiroshima prefecture. They made Type 99 (I prefer Type 38, which is why I forgot about this manufacturer) rifles under the supervision of Kokura arsenal (Tokyo).

Toyo Kogyo logo

I assume they are the same company, but does anybody know for sure? What else did Mazda make before cars?

So, why did Mazda change their logo in the mid-90's - I kind of prefer the old one.

FWIW, I realize this probably doesn't go in this forum (so please move it), but I can't really see another forum that is appropriate. The Lounge is currently covering such fundamental issues as 'who is the hottest teen' and which transformer has the best voice?!?! and this is specific to Mazda, not general to automotive.

Thanks,
Brian T. C.

riofrio

I have wondered the same thing... and I also prefer the old ones. I wonder if the change had anything to do with ford buying mazda...

TexasGunRunner

I forgot to add...

The Nagoya arsenal logo is supposed to represent two fighting fish (mouths open toward the bottom).

The Kokura logo (first 'character' in the Toyo Kogyo logo) is supposed to represent stacked cannon ***** - three on the bottom, one on the top, as viewed from above.

I have no idea what the second part of that logo is supposed to be.

WanKeL FD RX-7

iTrader: (7)

that a really good question, i still prefer the 'flying bird' logo than the ugly toilet logo

Max

Solid Snake

It might have something to do with Ford. I know all the other car companies that ford owns now has oval logos now.

Saru

Umm... no. Volvo? Aston Martin? Land Rover?

hornbm

Your forgetting jaguar

TexasGunRunner

Land Rover was already an oval...you consider the current Mazda logo to be an oval? ...it is more like a rounded edges square.

O 16581 72452 5

It reminds me more of the Toyota emblem.

357

Its interesting that you bring this up. I'm not sure about the relationship between Nagoya Arsenal and Toyo Kogyo, but Toyo Kogyo changed its name to Mazda sometime in the late 50's/early 60's, which is why there's the similarity between the logos.

mr_ouija

Doh you beat me to the punch. Some more info about the Toyo Kogyo...

Toyo Kogyo means "Orient Industry" in Japanese, Mazda was the name they took to americanize the company. Mazda was a name used once by General Electric on light bulbs since in persian culture Mazda refers to the "god of light".

Also, the change was in early 70's no exact date here in the book I have but It does say about in the early 70's is when they chose to export to America, hence the need for the name change.

This info is taken from the "Mazda RX-7 Performance Handbook"

Richard Miller

So would that make the "x" in RX for export or experiment?

What I was going to post that is just as trivial is I had seen some of these Mazda light bulbs while I was a projectionist.

oh yeah, first person to try and answer my first question will be taunted.

TexasGunRunner

Actually, there appears to be no relationship between Toyo Kogyo and the Nagoya Arsenal. The whole reason I looked it up was to see why the logo looked so much like the arsenal mark (I thought there might be a link based solely on the logo). That is when I realized they actually operated under their own name (if it is the same company).

Prior to the Ford semi-takeover...I am not sure they changed their name. If you look at the ID tags in the door jams or the labels under the hood, it says "Mazda, manufactured by Toyo Kogyo Company Ltd." or something to that effect...it has both names. Perhaps one is the parent of the other?

I haven't seen a recent one, so who knows if it is still that way or not.

--Brian T. C.

smnc

Mazda is not only a god, but also the CEO of the company at the time was named Matsuda, or Mazda as english people who could not pronounce japasese would say.
The god thing was a bonus

Also, about the logos. The original "toilet" logo was actually supposed to be a flame and symbolize the "rebirth" of the company. We all know how well that DIDN'T happen...
Anyway, Mazda was sued as apparently thet logo was VERY close to the logo of some other company (I can't rember who but I'll try and look it up later), anyway, as a result they had to change logos again and went the the "flying M", which is supposed to be a bird in flight...

fatboy7

Toyo Kogyo is a machine/parts manufacturer that got started around the turn of the century (1900's). They made parts for other car/transportation companies. In the 20's they themselves got into the transportation industry, making three wheel light "trucks" (more like motorbikes with a small cargo bed). They didn't really start getting into automobiles untill the late 30's. Then WWII happened.

I have no doubts that they were involved in making rifles, since mass produced machine work was what they did best. With the atom bomb being dropped only a short distance away in their town of Hiroshima( supposedly there is a hill that spared the plant from distruction), Toyo Kogyo shrank.

It wasn't untill the mid 50's that they really got back to making cars. They formed a daugter company, Mazda, as the new face to their automobile effort. I can imagine that this was to get away from the trucking stereotype that probably prevailed, kind of like if Mack tried to get into the car industry.

As far as I understand it, Toyo Kogyo still exists as a machine/parts company. I know that there name is still on parts sold for the RX's. The pilot bearing I recently replaced had their name on the box. I speculate that it was the advanced machining resources Mazda had from its parent company, Toyo Kogyo, that made them capable of producing the rotary in the first place, and also capable of gradually improving the rotary to the point it is now. Things like the sheet metal insert process for the rotor housings, and the electron beam hardening process for the apex seals are just a few things that only madza could have ever done "in-house", not to mention the casting nightmare that the whole engine is.

fatboy7

I'm sure I'm forgetting things, and getting other confused, but all that stuff I read in a book entiled, "RX-7" That was written mainly about the development of the 2nd gen cars, but also a ton of stuff about Mazda's history, and the development of the rotary engine. It was written by Mazda as a promotional I think. Anyway, it was donated to the university I attend. Amazing what you'll find in the library.

TexasGunRunner

I spent a two days in Hiroshima and went to ground zero (the corner of a modern parking garage), and saw all the memorial structures.

After having seen all the apocalytic movies about fallout, nuclear winter, etc.; and then seeing Hiroshima today and pictures of what happened immediately afterward, I was very surprised.

I don't want to understate the devastation or leave the impression that it was minor (a couple of hundred thousand souls - mostly civilian - perished), but I was surprised by how small the destruction area was. Mostly it nailed a residential area on an island in the middle of a river.

Although the musuem effectively demonstrates how there were ill effects very far away, the truth is that the true devastation was confined to like a 3-5KM diameter circle. Beyond that, the damage was no more severe than normal bombing, like in England, and outside of 10-15KM actual structural damage was light.

Miyajima (famous shrine) and Ito Jima (Imperial Japanese Naval Academy), are both within 25-30 KM of ground zero, and both were basically unscathed. Miyajima was (and is) a nature preserve with monkeys and all sorts of other creatures. Long term, the ill effects appear to be minor, if any. Or, perhaps to put it a better way, God made the ecosystem far more resilient than you would think.

Even at ground zero (within 300 mts) there are two trees that are still alive, that were completely burned on one side, but still blossom on the far side.

Again, don't let me diminish the impact. The museum, although very small, is very depressing. The worst is an art exhibit of amateur artwork by survivors, showing what they saw - it looks like a million nightmares by kids...very scary and sad stuff. It is also the part you *must* see if you go.

I was also very angered. The museum was filled with a lot of mindless propaganda, primarily anti-US BS desguised as 'anti-proliferation' propaganda (although the US was the only target?).

They also had cartoons depicting P-51s strafing poor starving innocent Japanese children (in the cartoon, the Cadillac of the Skies makes 3 passes to kill this one girl, her doll, and tricycle - no military targets around).

Japanese militarism, atrocities, and genocide is conveniently forgotten.

Still, all that is history. The guilty are long since punished or dead, and I don't see how anyone can hold a people morally responsible for something done by leaders from 3+ generations ago.

...as long as I am on a political rant, the real danger is not what Japan was, or how a small group of peaceniks have turned a solemn shrine into a political bully pulpit for their own warped sense of history...

...the real danger is China, and how they use WWII and Asian fears of old Japan to hide their own attrocities, militarism, and desire to create a new Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere centered around Beijing.

...but I digress

/Rant

Thanks for the Mazda history lesson, it was very interesting.

smnc

Not that I disagree with with you, because I don't.
But I can't help but think that they might be a little justified in a bit of US bashing... not to put to fine a point on it, but the US did drop not one, but two nukes on a country that was a couple of weeks away from losing the war anyway. And as you said, the drop on Hiroshima was in a residential neighborhood...

TexasGunRunner

Fair comment, it is human nature and to be expected.

Still, I don't think that justifies them portraying Allied pilots (including Canadians) as blood-thirsty zeolots maliciously mowing down 5 year old girls in cartoons marketed to kids of this generation. It just breeds contempt and hatred...unjustifiably so.

As to the specifics...the Americans (not necessarily including the other Allies, except maybe the Aussies) truly did expect the invasion of the Japanese homeland to cost millions of lives; civilians, military, everybody.

We had a really poor understanding of the Japanese power structure at the start of the war, and had even less understanding of how it changed in the last few months as the Emperor reasserted authority over Tojo.

Nevermind that in May of '45, almost exactly 3 months before the bomb was dropped, the Emperor had ordered emissaries in Moscow to contact Stalin (who had not yet declared war on Japan) about negotiating a peace between Japan and the Alllies.

If we had known that, we would have never dropped the bombs.

Instead, Stalin read the writing on the wall and saw an opportunity to expand his empire. He lied to the Japanese saying the American refused to consider peace, and then within a few days (and only two months before the war's end) he declared war on Japan. Therefore, with no risk or commitment in the Pacific, he secured the Northern islands for the Soviet Union.

Morally, in my book, the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki rest largely on Stalin's head, and to a slightly lesser extent on Tojo, Togo, and the other militarists who started the war.

With the information they had, Truman & Company made the right decision to save the most lives by ordering the deaths of 300-400K.

Any responsibility we bear comes from our being so nieve as to trust the Soviets. We should have gone to the Swiss, or Mexico, or anywhere else, to give them a final chance.

In any event, all this is stirred up to remove focus from China's current intentions in Asia...which bares so many scary similarities to 1920's and 1930's militarist Japan, it isn't funny.

RacerX7fb

Toyo Kogyo Kaisha was a company that produced cork during WW1...eventually produced machine tools, then motorcycles and 3-wheeled vehicles...then eventually manufactured cars in 1960. '
Mazda' was already the chosen trade name. These changes occured due to changes in the economy...which is why then president of the company, Tsuneji Matsuda acquired the license to develop the rotary from NSU in 1961 to have a 'technological edge' Engineer Kenichi Yamamoto was left in charge of the "47 Samurai" rotary engineers to develop the rotary engine and made it work.
In 1967 the Cosmo rolled off the production line. In 1976 Project X605 began and so did the legend...RX-7! In 1984, Toyo Kogyo changes its name to Mazda Motor Corporation...later that year "Mr. Mazda" Yamamoto becomes president of the company..retiring 1992. This man has seen the Mazda rotary from its beginning to the FD!
At SevenStock 5..it was an honor to meet one of the 47 Samurai engineers, Kazuo Takada and his wife as well as Takaharu 'Koby' Kobayakawa.
Most recently at SevenStock 6, I was humbled to be greated by Koby-san with a huge smile, a bow and a hug
I love Mazdas "never give up" spirit when it comes to their engines.


me in a '52 Mazda

Directfreak

iTrader: (2)

You guys are great. This is a great thread. I knew much of this information, but now can see things from a different perspective.

Manntis

Japan invaded Manchuria and set up a fence between the new 'Manchukuo' and the rest of China. Every 200 yards or so, a fencepost held up the head of a Chinese peasant as a warning for the rest of them to stay out.

I understand that China is a well populated communist country with a language and culture that makes xenophobic anti-communists fear the worst, but I've yet to see the Chinese perform mass beheadings of neighboring civilians.

TexasGunRunner

There is no question that what the Japanese did in Manchuria and elsewhere in Asia was barbaric. The atrocities in Nanking and elsewhere are absolutely abhorrent and incomprehensible.

Often overlooked (especially when discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are the Bataan Death March which killed thousands of Filipino and American soldiers, and the 'scientific' experiments performed on Chinese, American, Australian, and other prisoners (including non-combatants).

That is all past though. Sure, we need to know it, and not forget it, but those responsible are dead.

In fact, it is precisely because of those atrocities that I am very concerned about China's intention in establishing supremacy in Asia (they even use the same terms "co-prosperity sphere" as the militarist Japanese).

There were more than a few people who described our fears of Japan in the '30's as unwarranted xenophobia.

I would argue that the atrocities committed by Japan between 1905 and 1945 pale in comparison to those committed by China over the last 60 years; and the responsible party for those atrocities are still in power.

I strongly encourage you to research the atrocities committed by China.

I was going to tick off a laundry list of Chinese atrocities, etc...but this is not a political forum and I have already overstepped the bounds of what is reasonable in discussing it.

Suffice it to say, I disagree with you about the nature and intentions of the current Chinese government.

NanaimoRx-7

Wow, a thought provoking thread and no flames to date. It looks like you chose the correct forum after all. Very interesting reading, thank you.

slashdawg00110

In a world where intelligent and polite discussion is becoming rare, I'm impressed. I'm glad I read the thread.