Surpassing the limits for over 100 years.
While Subaru was founded in 1955, Subaru's history begins over a hundred years ago, when we launched our Aircraft Research Laboratory under the name of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. The goal was to make machines that could soar across the sky. Since then, our relentless spirit to make a machine fly has inspired us every step forward. Subaru became one of the first few companies to market a full-time All-Wheel Drive (AWD) passenger car in 1986. By combining a turbo-charged engine with an AWD system, we also pioneered the market for high-performance station wagons. Over the years, we continuously improve on our AWD system. Our hallmark Symmetrical AWD system enhances safety and optimizes driving pleasure. While we've expanded from manufacturing planes to cars, one thing remains unchanged. Our pursuit of safety. Cars transport people, but Subaru transports the ones we love. This is why we are committed to perfecting dependable vehicles. Never taking shortcuts or the easy way out. Precision is in everything we do.

Today, we've become one of the world's leading automakers. Best known for our engineering, safety, reliability, and functionality, Subaru vehicles are widely known as the "driver's cars," offering superb handling through the pairing of our core technologies: Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive and Boxer Engine. Our devotion to our customers has taken us from manufacturing machines to inspiring confidence in motion with smiles of love.

Shooting for the stars is in our name.
The origin of the Subaru name and logo dates back to the 1950s, when Kenji Kita was the first president of Subaru Corporation, formerly known as Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. Mr. Kita was passionate about one thing: producing passenger cars. And so, in 1954, we did just that. We produced our first passenger prototype, the P-1.

Mr. Kita was adamant that, "Japanese cars should have Japanese names." After several name proposals, Mr. Kita named it "Subaru," a beautiful Japanese name taken from the name of the star cluster in the Taurus constellation. Only six of its stars are visible to the naked eye, but about 250 bluish stars can be seen by telescope. In the West, that same cluster is called Pleiades. In China, Mao. In Japan, Subaru, which means to govern, gather together, or unite. In Japan, it also goes by the name Mutsuraboshi, translating to "Six Stars", which often appears in very old Japanese documents such as the Kojiki and Manyoshu, and literature such as Makura-no-soshi. It's clear that this constellation was well-loved in Japan in ancient times. Fittingly enough, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. was formed by the merger of six companies. From that moment on, the new corporation adopted the "Subaru" cluster of stars as the official logo for its line of cars.