Osamu Suzuki, who led Japanese automaker into India, dies at 94

Osamu Suzuki, an ingenious penny pincher who led Japan’s Suzuki Motor for more than four decades and played a key role in turning India into a flourishing auto market, has died aged 94.

Osamu Suzuki, an ingenious penny pincher who led Japan’s Suzuki Motor for more than four decades and played a key role in turning India into a flourishing auto market, has died aged 94. He died on December 25 of lymphoma, said the company, which he steered ambitiously, during his time as either chief executive or chairman, out of its primary market of minivehicles. The inexpensive, boxy, 660-cc cars specific to Japan benefited from generous tax breaks but demanded a stringent reining-in of costs that proved to be a key part of the automaker’s DNA. Even so, Suzuki’s thriftiness was legendary. He would order factory ceilings lowered to save on air-conditioning and fly economy class on airplanes even at an advanced age. “Forever,” or “until the day I die,” were signature humorous responses with which he parried queries about how long he would stay at the company, on which he retained a tight grip into his 70s and 80s. Born Osamu Matsuda, Suzuki took his wife’s family name through adoption in a practice common among Japanese families lacking a male heir.