Chapter l, The person behind Saminda.
Almost everyone has heard of Saminda vehicles. They can be found everywhere across the roads no matter where you are from, but not everyone know about the man attributed for being the brains behind the company, it was Kuro Saminda.
Kuro Saminda was born as the only son of a tailor named Shinji Saminda, his parents always wanted him to become a doctor or lawyer when he grows up but he doesn’t do well at school.
It’s this day that has changed Saminda life, when he heard a loud rumble outside his house, he saw a guy driving town the road in a Ford model T and he was so amaze that how the car manage to move by itself, he left his house and ran after the model T for around 1 miles before returning home, he got beaten by his father for leaving home without permission. This is when he wanted to learn about vehicles.
By the time he was age 22, he was working at Shuri-Ten shop (A vehicle repair shop). The work was not directly related to engines but he was just a cleaner there, until the owner of the garage found his real talent.
Six years later he was managing the Shuri-Ten branch in Shiga workshop. Initially, he felt that the garage is the only one in town, but soon he was faced with the fact that he is not alone. Soon came new competitors, but he has 2 steps to win the competition. First he received a repair shop that was rejected earlier by the other and both are working as quickly as possible so the customer does not take long to wait.
But Kuro Saminda is not the type who are satisfied with one success. He wants a lot of ideas that need to be realized. His Flywheel is what makes him go back to school at age 30 after struggling with a variety of experiments, the Flywheel he made does not meet his expectation which took Kuro 3 years to study. And so he managed to complete an engine he created himself which is a gas powered 200cc 1 cylinder engine but he doesn’t have a chassis to test it out, and he got the idea of using used woods to make a chassis out of it.
Kuro spend all his saving and founded the Saminda Technical Research Institute, which he design engines and sell it to generators company. Although sucessful for 3 years, Eventually, World War 2 happened and in order to survive, Kuro eventually became the military industrial supplier.
World War 2 ended in 1945, Kuro continued his business and sold it own design engine to generators company and after 5 years, he eventually founded Saminda Motor Co.
Saminda first model was released in 1954 as Version A, but it was not a success because the vehicle was too heavy and consume lots of fuel, people in general doesn’t like it and he noticed what wasn’t working, instead of giving up, he changed his approach again
He decided to strip his vehicle down and make it smaller, which called New Version A, and it became an “overnight success,” winning Saminda the Emperor’s Award.
In addition to love the world of machinery, Kuro Saminda himself is crazy in the racing world. It’s also what later became the key to success. From the racing arena, he is getting valuable input for product development.
Even when newly entering the world of car production in 1954, only 6 years later, they enter 24 hours Le Mans which surprise their competitors.
When he retired in 1975, he handed over his command on Tamaasa Yoshitomo which was a senior chief engineer on that time. Kuro Saminda died in 1993 at the age of 87 due to stroke. Leaving his wife, Matsu, and a son and two daughters.
