In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1875
- Died
- 1952
- Birthplace
- Hiroshima, Japan
- Country
- Japan
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Machinery and three-wheeled trucks
- Original company
- Toyo Cork Kogyo
- Office
- Second president, 1921
- Later office
- Chairman, 1951
Why this life matters
His career shows a productive connection between machine-shop experience and vehicle manufacturing. The important transition was organisational as well as technical: a firm could add products while older activities continued.
Timeline
Key moments
Participation
Joined the founding venture.
Presidency
Became second president.
Reorganisation
Company renamed Toyo Kogyo.
Succession
Moved to the chairmanship.
Death
The founder’s working life ended.
A working life formed in workshops
Born in Hiroshima, Matsuda left for metalworking in Osaka in his early teens. His ventures included pumps and machinery; not every attempt succeeded, and he moved between enterprises before returning to Hiroshima.
The entrepreneur museum also places workshop training at the centre of his early career.
That background helps explain his later preference for work he understood from making things, rather than reducing his career to the founding date of a car brand.
Taking responsibility for a cork producer
He joined the struggling Toyo Cork Kogyo and developed compressed cork products. A serious factory fire interrupted the recovery.
He was its second president from 1921. The company became Toyo Kogyo in 1927 as it expanded into machinery.
A second president can be central to a company’s transformation without being its sole original incorporator. That distinction is important to his contribution.
Trucks, other products and wartime production
He worked with engineers on three-wheeled trucks and sought in-house manufacture of key parts.
The cork operation was transferred to Uchiyama in 1944; the account also records a request for investment in the resulting business.
During the war, Toyo Kogyo produced military equipment. After the atomic bombing, its surviving premises supported relief and temporary government operations.
The civilian product story cannot erase wartime production or the circumstances of Hiroshima’s recovery. Nor should a product change be mistaken for an instantaneous end to every earlier business activity.
Succession and the end of the working life
He became chairman in 1951 and died in 1952.
Sources for this section: [5]
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Jujiro Matsuda
- Was he the first president of the original company?
- No. He was its second president.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Kiichiro Toyoda
Compare another working life through its own records.
- Edward Hallstrom
Continue with another enterprise and a different operational question.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. MazdaFounder’s passion: Jujiro Matsuda
Early apprenticeship ages and fire-damage descriptions differ; precise disputed values are withheld.
- 2. MazdaHistorical highlights
- 3. Mazda Stories / Shogo HagiwaraHow Mazda’s past inspires its future
Transfer account, not the original agreement or a share register.
- 4. CSM Entrepreneur MuseumMatsuda Jujiro, entrepreneur museum
- 5. Nichigai / Kodansha via KotobankMatsuda Jujiro: Japanese biographical entries
The profile retains year-only birth and death precision.
