Dōwa Automotive Industries Co Ltd (

traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

Kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' ( ja, 舊字體 / 旧字体, lit=old character forms) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese. Their simplified counterparts are ''shinjitai'' ( ja, 新字体, lit=new character forms, lab ...

: 同和自動車工業株式會社;

Shinjitai are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensiv ...

: 同和自動車工業株式会社; Japanese Hepburn: ''Dōwa Jidōsha Kōgyō kabushiki kaisha'') was a Manchukuo-based manufacturer of automobiles, trucks and armored cars. Its head office was in

Mukden Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it is the prov ...

, the largest city of Manchukuo.

History

Founded on March 26, 1934, Dōwa Automotive was a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...

of the

South Manchurian Railway Company The South Manchuria Railway ( ja, 南満州鉄道, translit=Minamimanshū Tetsudō; ), officially , Mantetsu ( ja, 満鉄, translit=Mantetsu) or Mantie () for short, was a large of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operatio ...

, the government of Manchukuo, and 7 Japanese companies. Following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

saw the need for increased

mechanization Mechanization is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text a machine is defined as follows: In some fields, mechanization includes the ...

, and the

Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...

began to import foreign-built vehicles, including the Model 25 Vickers Crossley Armored Car. After the formation of the Empire of Manchukuo, the Kwantung Army's economic policy of self-sufficiency in major strategic

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

spurred the need for locally-built trucks and automobiles. Dōwa began with the assistance of ''Tōkyō Jidōsha Kogyo'' (the forerunner of Isuzu) to build vehicles from knock-down kits, as the infrastructure of sub-suppliers was gradually increased to permit more and more local content. Initial production was estimated at 5000 vehicles per year, many of which were copies of the Crossley design. Dōwa Automotive was absorbed into the new , a state combine and subsidiary of the Manchurian Heavy Industries in 1940.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{Cite book, url=http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1268430/16, title=満業並在満関係会社定款集, publisher=満洲重工業開発, date=1939, page=21-29, language=ja, url-status=live, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127203354/http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1268430/16, archivedate=2018-01-27 Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Manchukuo Military history of Japan during World War II Military vehicles of Manchukuo Companies in Manchukuo