Suzuki

Suzuki Motor Corporation (Japanese: スズキ株式会社, Hepburn: Suzuki Kabushiki-Kaisha) is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Minami-ku, Hamamatsu, Japan, which specializes in manufacturing automobiles, four-wheel drive vehicles, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and a variety of other small internal combustion engines. In 2011, Suzuki was thought to be the ninth biggest automaker by production worldwide. Suzuki has over 45,000 employees worldwide and has about 35 main production facilities in 23 countries and 133 distributors in 192 countries.

History

In 1909, Michio Suzuki (1887–1982) founded the Suzuki Loom Works in the small seacoast village of Hamamatsu, Japan. Business boomed as Suzuki built weaving looms for Japan's giant silk industry. In 1929, Michio Suzuki invented a new type of weaving machine, which was exported overseas. The company's first 30 years focused on the development and production of these machines.

Despite the success of his looms, Suzuki believed that his company would benefit from diversification and he began to look at other products. Based on consumer demand, he decided that building a small car would be the most practical new venture. The project began in 1937, and within two years Suzuki had completed several compact prototype cars. These first Suzuki motor vehicles were powered by a then-innovative, liquid-cooled, four-stroke, four-cylinder engine. It had a cast aluminum crankcase and gearbox and generated 13 horsepower (9.7 kW) from a displacement of less than 800cc.

Rio

Rio or Río, the Portuguese and Spanish words for river, may refer to:

Places

People

Rio Suzuki

Rio Suzuki (鈴木 梨央, Suzuki Rio, born 10 February 2005) is a Japanese child actress and tarento. She is famous for such TV dramas as Yae no Sakura,Ashita, Mama ga Inai and as a television personality.

Filmography

Television

Severn Cullis-Suzuki

Severn Cullis-Suzuki (born November 30, 1979 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian environmental activist, speaker, television host and author. She has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual responsibility. She is also the daughter of Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.

Biography

Cullis-Suzuki was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her mother is writer Tara Elizabeth Cullis. Her father, geneticist and environmental activist David Suzuki, is a third-generation Japanese Canadian. While attending Lord Tennyson Elementary School in French Immersion, at age 9, she founded the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a group of children dedicated to learning and teaching other youngsters about environmental issues. In 1992, at age 12, Cullis-Suzuki raised money with members of ECO to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Along with group members Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttie, and Morgan Geisler, Cullis-Suzuki presented environmental issues from a youth perspective at the summit, where she was applauded for a speech to the delegates. The video has since become a viral hit, popularly known as "The Girl Who Silenced the World for 6 Minutes". In 1993, she was honored in the United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour. In 1993, Doubleday published her book Tell the World, a 32-page book of environmental steps for families.

Suzuki Swift

The Suzuki Swift is a subcompact car produced by Suzuki in Japan since 2000. Prior to this, the "Swift" nameplate had been applied to the Suzuki Cultus in numerous export markets.

Nameplate history

The Suzuki Swift began in 1985 as a marketing and manufacturing rebadge of the Suzuki Cultus, a supermini (or subcompact) manufactured and marketed worldwide across three generations and four body configurations—three-door hatchback, four-door sedan, five-door hatchback and two-door convertible—and using the Suzuki G engine family.

The Swift was marketed in the Japanese domestic market (JDM) as the Cultus and elsewhere as the Suzuki Swift, Suzuki Forsa, Suzuki Jazz, Chevrolet Swift, Chevrolet Sprint and Sprint Metro, Geo and Chevrolet Metro, Pontiac Firefly, Maruti 1000, Holden Barina and Subaru Justy. Versions of the second generation Cultus were also produced until 2007 in India and the car remains in production today in Pakistan and China. For more information on the initial versions of the Swift, see: Suzuki Cultus and Geo Metro.