was a Japanese

aerospace manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of Aircraft design process, designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a hi ...

which produced several designs for the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...

. After the war, the company was reorganized as Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd (愛知機械工業) where they made small ''

kei Kei or KEI may refer to: People * Kei (given name) * Kei, Cantonese for Ji (姫) * Kei, Cantonese for Qi (奇, 祁, 亓) * Shō Kei (1700–1752), king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom * Kei (singer) (born 1995), stage name of South Korean singer Kim Ji ...

'' cars until 1966 when they were integrated into

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

and developed the

Nissan Sunny The is an automobile built by the Japanese automaker Nissan from 1966 till 2004. In the early 1980s, the brand changed from Datsun to Nissan in line with other models by the company. Although production of the Sunny in Japan ended in 2004, the ...

and

Nissan Vanette The is a cabover van and pickup truck produced by the Japanese automaker Nissan Motors, Nissan from 1978 until 2011. The first two generations were engineered by Nissan's Aichi Kokuki, Aichi Manufacturing Division for private, personal ownership, ...

History

Aichi Watch and Electric Manufacturing

The company was established in 1898 in

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...

as Aichi Tokei Denki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha (Aichi Watch and Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd.). Aircraft production started in

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...

,Mikesh and Abe 1990, p. 61. and the company relied initially on technical assistance from

Heinkel Heinkel Flugzeugwerke () was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight, wit ...

, which influenced some of their designs. Later, with the prodding and support of the

, the company started making seaplanes using technology imported from

Short Brothers Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...

in the UK. During the inter-war period, Aichi was the beneficiary of technology transferred from

of Germany. At the time, a team from the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

occasionally visited German aircraft manufacturers to monitor the ban on military aircraft research and production. A Japanese military attache who was a member of the monitoring team, let Heinkel know, confidentially and in advance, of the planned visits. Heinkel thus succeeded in continuing its design on the aircraft ordered by Aichi Aircraft without being spotted. In

1943 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 � ...

the aircraft division was spun off as Aichi Kokuki Kabushiki Kaisha (Aichi Aircraft Co., Ltd.).

Aichi Machine Industry

After the war, the company was reorganized, manufacturing ''

'' cars under the Cony brand name in Japan. Its current descendant, Aichi Kikai Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha (Aichi Machine Industry Co., Ltd.), is integrated with the

corporate structure.

Products

Aircraft

Engines

* Aichi AC-1 - 1929 experimental nine-cylinder radial engine * Aichi Atsuta (アツタ or 熱田) - licensed copy of the

Daimler-Benz DB 601A The Daimler-Benz DB 601 was a German aircraft engine that was built during World War II. It was a liquid-cooled inverted V12, and powered the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Bf 110, and many others. Approximately 19,000 601s were produ ...

inverted V12 * Aichi Ha-70 - two Atsuta engines coupled together

Automotive

Nissan engines

Nissan A engine The Nissan A series of internal combustion gasoline engines have been used in Datsun and Nissan brand vehicles. Displacements of this four-stroke engine family ranged from 1.0-liter to 1.5-liter and have been produced from 1967 till 2009. It is a ...

* HR15DE / HR16DE * CR12DE / CR14DE * QG13DE / QG15DE / QG16DE / QG18DE

Transmissions

*FS6R31 - with synchronous control. *F30A / F50A / F70A *MFA60 / MFA80 *W60A *FS5R30A *MRA70 *GR6

Vehicles manufactured

Nissan Cherry The Datsun Cherry (チェリー), known later as the Nissan Cherry, is a series of subcompact cars which formed Nissan's first front-wheel drive supermini model line. The Nissan Cherry featured the front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout. The Ch ...

Nissan Serena The is a minivan manufactured by Nissan, joining the slightly larger Vanette. The car was engineered by Nissan's Aichi Manufacturing Division and launched in 1991 as a compact passenger van, and it grew larger with each generation over the y ...

(Largo) *

Cony Guppy The Cony Guppy is a small pickup truck manufactured by Aichi. The vehicle had suicide doors and rotating amber beacons on the B-pillar. The brake lights were tiny and circular. The engine, which rests behind the seats, is a two-valve, 199 cc ...

, a two-seat microcar *

Cony 360 Wide The Cony 360 was a kei car, truck, and van made by Aichi Kokuki. Overview The 360 (referring to the 354 cc engine, bore × stroke: 64 × 55 mm) had a two-cylinder boxer engine producing at 5500 rpm. Originally introduced as a two- ...

, a cabover ''

keitora A kei truck, kei-class truck, or Japanese mini truck, known in Japan as a ( ), is a style of pickup truck built to satisfy the Japanese ( ) statutory class of light vehicles. Limited to certain size restrictions—currently no more than lon ...

''/

Microvan A microvan is a van or minivan which is within the Japanese kei car classification or similar, and is smaller than a mini MPV. In China, these vehicles are nicknamed ''miàn bāo chē'' ("bread-loaf vehicle") because of their shape.

/minitruck * , predecessor to Cony 360 *

Cony 360 The Cony 360 was a kei car, truck, and van made by Aichi Kokuki. Overview The 360 (referring to the 354 cc engine, bore × stroke: 64 × 55 mm) had a two-cylinder boxer engine producing at 5500 rpm. Originally introduced as a two- ...

a passenger kei car

References

Footnotes

Notes

Bibliography

* Mikesh, Robert C. and Shorzoe Abe. ''Japanese Aircraft, 1910-1941''. London: Putnam Aeronautical, 1990. . * Odagiri, Hiroyuki. ''Technology and Industrial Development in Japan''. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1996. .

External links

* {{coord, 35.1337981, 136.8969623, type:landmark, display=title Defunct aircraft manufacturers of Japan Nissan Manufacturing companies based in Nagoya Defunct aircraft engine manufacturers of Japan