debate at school

[Dennis ex24]

allow me to add what i know and have heard...most of it from the horses mouth. i wont post anything i know not to be true.

 

"Subaru" was never really a brand or title until it was brought to America. Malcolm Bricklin visited Japan in the mid to late 60's and entertained the idea of importing these bizzarre micro cars into the USA via the west coast. He tapped one Mr. Harvey Lamm, and they found thier investors and SOA was born with offices based in Philadelphia.

 

Bricklin and Lamm forged foward until the early 70's when Bricklin got a genius idea and struck out on his own to start his own unique brand of cars as if Subaru wasn't odd enough for the USA's taste. Some say that Subaru was struggling around this time and others say that Bricklin simply wanted to do his own thing. If the latter is true, then he did do his own thing - but it wasn't successful, do a google search of his last name to find out why.

 

Lamm was the man at SOA throughout the 1970's and 1980's. They were a pubicly traded company in the US and actually had an ad campaign during this time which said "Subaru, an American company". Their offices found thier way into So. Jersey and they are still based there today. In 1986, Fuji bought up the remaining stock, Lamm sold his shares and "ownership" was sent back to Japan.

 

Subaru is now wholly-owned by Fuji Heavy Industries and operates in the US through the headquarters in NJ, with regional offices in different states across the US.

 

I heard Harvey Lamm founded CarFax, but I'm not sure if this is true. He still lives in the area.

 

Malcolm Bricklin is still doing his own thing, i read someplace that he is trying to bring some version of the Yugo back to the US in 2005.

[bajavwnsoobnut]

yes back in the 70's that was the way for Subaru of America but it is still the invent of the japanese and trhe 4wd system in subarus are unique in the fact that FHI designed it in 71 from the FWD tranny theat they designed (trust me GD they are entirely different in design from the bug/bus tranny) just for a japanese utility company doing service work in northern japan and they debuted it in 72 in the wagon form and started selling them just after the bebut and then started importing them into the US in 75

 

 

if you guys want somemore history on Subaru just look for "where the suckers moon" as I posted about lil over a month ago.

 

As for WW2 with FHI it used to be Nakagema (sp?) aircraft research company and they did design part of the Zero and alot of the other aircraft used in WW2 and also produced parts for them and also built alot of them

[SakoTGrimes]

So for a few days now I've been trying to figure out where I heard that Paul Hogan had died. For the last 5 months or so, I have thought he was dead. Anyway, that's how I came across this thread. Figured I'd try to clear up a few things too.

 

von Wikipedia: In 1902 Léon Levavasseur took out a patent on a V8 engine which he called Antoinette after the young daughter of his financial backer, and from 1904 installed the engine in a number of speedboats and aircraft which were also called "Antoinette", as was the company that built them. In 1909 one of these aircraft tried but failed to cross the English Channel.[1]

The idea of the V8 engine became popular in France and was used in a number of V8 aircraft engines introduced by Renault, and Buchet among others. Rolls Royce built a 3,535 cm3 V8 car from 1905 to 1906, but only 3 copies were made. After designing a number of aircraft V8s, De Dion-Bouton introduced a 7,773 cm3 automobile V8 in 1910 and displayed it in New York in 1912. However, the first mass-production automobile V8 was introduced in 1914 by Cadillac, which produced 13,000 of the 5,429 cm3 L-head engines in the first year."

 

And as for the Nissan l series engine: "The design is often incorrectly attributed to Mercedes-Benz. In 1966 Prince Motor Company merged with Nissan. At the time of the merger, they were licensed to produce copies of the four and six-cylinder engines. Prince Motor Company later refined the design such that it no longer needed licensing. The engine still resembles a Mercedes in many ways, particularly the valve train."

 

BTW, I knew these 2 things already, just had to look up the exact wording! :-p

[The Keith]

ok i got a question, people are saying subaru is orignally from down under, while others are sayin its a jap car, which is it, reason it came up is we are going though AWD systems, and my car was bought up.

 

and im not sure, trust me im imbarassed about not knowing.

 

Thanks,

Shean

 

 

This is prolly why Subaru advertisment department droped Paul Hogan, the Crocidile Dundee image, and "The world's first sport utility wagon" slogan after a couple years. People started thinking they were Austrailian and forgot they were Japaneese!

 

Yeah, Blaim Paul Hogan and all his ads...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESsoZJtMbqc

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKnMqrJ-MEk

[TeamCF]

Taken from an automotive histoy book:

 

"Part of the former Nakajima Aircraft Company, Fuji Sangyo was organized in 1945, then reformed in 1950 by order of the occupying Allied forces into 12 smaller companies. Of which five became Fuji Heavy Industries in 1953, building scooters, railway rolling stock and aircraft power units. They joined Nissan in 1968. Thier first car, the 360 was released in 1966, and the FE in 1968." ..... ect. You know the rest.

 

I checked a few books and all say the same thing.

 

I have also read somewhere that the subi emblem represents all the companies. With the five small stars being the small companies coming together, and the biggest star being Fuji Heavy.

But I've also heard other stories of it's reason as well. I just tend to see the logic in that one. hehe

[RONAN]

Land of the rising sun is the birthplace for "reversed engineering".

 

The only thing that they truly invented, was GODZILLA!

 

Just one mans opinion>:cool:

[crazyhorse001]

When Subaru was looking into front wheel drive, the engineers got thier hands on a VW and drove it backwards thru the mountains of Japan!

To see just exactly what info a driver truly needed, they gutted the dash of a car & drove it in Tokyo traffic.

 

Paraphrased from the Road & Track guide to the SVX

[kiwi subbie]

The origin's of the AWD and 4WD, and the Subaru flat 4 engine still used today are actually rip-off's of what VW did many years ago. The rod-shifted, transaxle and flat 4 is essencially a VW beetle setup with the differential reversed, and water cooling added. Bugaru tells me that the 4WD thing started with people machining into the end of the VW transaxle, and making 4WD Bug's! Audi capitolized on this in the very early 80's (80, 81) with the quattro AWD system used in their rally car's of the day.

 

But yes - Subaru is Japanese in origin. But like many Japanese companies (Sony), they simply reverse engineered, and improved upon the technologies that more tech savy companies had invented.

 

Austrailia has nothing to do with Subaru at all really - as far as the origins of the brand or it's tech. It's all Fuji Heavy, which as previously stated is a direct decendant of the aircraft company from WW2.

 

GD

 

OMG No one has meachioned where they got there orginal flat 4 engine design from lol

Right you guys are right it is german but its not VW tie ups.

FHI brought the rights to the LLoyd 900 also known as borgward Arabella

its was an 900cc water cooled flat 4 that was front wheel drive small family saloon

 

heres an pic of engine and car

 

[calebz]

Land of the rising sun is the birthplace for "reversed engineering".

 

The only thing that they truly invented, was GODZILLA!

 

Just one mans opinion>:cool:

 

 

1 - see: China

2 - We all know that US manufacturers (of any sort)have never 'reverse engineered' anything

 

 

Opinions are fine and all, but keep in mind that little statements can have big implications.

[fadedbear]

I have also read somewhere that the subi emblem represents all the companies. With the five small stars being the small companies coming together, and the biggest star being Fuji Heavy.

But I've also heard other stories of it's reason as well. I just tend to see the logic in that one. hehe

 

Subaru is Japanese for Pleiades, the star constellation.

 

The Japanese also have an astronomical telescope which is called Subaru, in Hawaii.

[markjw]

Land of the rising sun is the birthplace for "reversed engineering".

 

The only thing that they truly invented, was GODZILLA!

 

Just one mans opinion>:cool:

 

 

Hey RONAN,

Your probably the same guy I see on the news, sittin' around your single wide trailer half drunk most of the time, complaining about all the preferential treatment the Asians enjoy in the US. You need to try and put to rest your 50year old, slanderous, half truth propaganda and realize the Japanese people have contributed enormously to the technological advances that the entire world enjoys today. I read somewhere that this is a Forum to discuss the Subaru vehicle and the Mods that we do to them. There are Forums specifically for the kind of rant your laying down here. Maybe you should go and regurgitate your "opinion" over there.

[baccaruda]

there are also forums specifically dedicated to the kind of sarcastic and malicious cut-downs YOU'RE laying down. This isn't one of them.

[calebz]

Hey RONAN,

Your probably the same guy I see on the news, sittin' around your single wide trailer half drunk most of the time, complaining about all the preferential treatment the Asians enjoy in the US. You need to try and put to rest your 50year old, slanderous, half truth propaganda and realize the Japanese people have contributed enormously to the technological advances that the entire world enjoys today. I read somewhere that this is a Forum to discuss the Subaru vehicle and the Mods that we do to them. There are Forums specifically for the kind of rant your laying down here. Maybe you should go and regurgitate your "opinion" over there.

 

 

I was going to delete this, then I decided it would be more fun to laugh at the irony of this being posted from freakin Yelm of all places.

 

So instead I'll lock it and let everyone that has ever been to Yelm laugh along with me.