Daihatsu Motor one of the most known and oldest auto mobile companies that sell and manufacture core combustion engines. It also got famous later on for its slighter kei models as well as off-road cars and other vehicles. The headquarters of Daihatsu Motor is located at the Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture.
In 1907 Hatsudoki Seizo Co. Ltd was a company that made gasoline-motorized engine for power plants of small size. Later in 1930, the main focus of Hatsudoki Seizo Co became the steam engines for railway. Their manufactures mostly included railway carriages that were used for passenger transportations. After steam engines they moved on to diesel engines, collaborating with various companies like Niigata Engineering, and also Shinko Engineering Co., Ltd. Later in 1960 Daihatsu became the successor of Hatsudoki Seizo Co. Ltd. They started exporting to Europe even, but the sales didn’t kick till the 80’s. Almost all of Daihatsu’s models and cars are termed as kei jidōsha in Japan, which means kei cars.
Daihatsu was working independently till 1967, but in that same year Toyota became the king shareholder because the Japanese government wanted to make a domestic market. Toyota was approached by the banker of Daihatsu, offering shares. By 1995 Toyota got hold of 33.4 percent as it started to buy out other shareholders. They also targeted other banks as well as insurance companies to get hold of their shares of Daihatsu. By the end of 1998, Toyota got hold of 51.2 shares by buying out big fishes, and became the majority shareholder of Daihatsu
Due to losses and up and downs in the company that included pulling out of Europe export, Daihatsu was taken over by Toyota and it became a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation in 2016.