Tohatsu Corporation is a Japanese company manufacturing and selling outboard motors, pleasure boats, portable fire pumps, small fire trucks, pumps for construction, drainage and refrigeration units for transport. It is also heavily involved in real estate and property management throughout Japan.
The birth of Tohatsu began in 1922 with research and development of small petrol engines for various applications and in addition, works for the Ministry of Railways.
Originally named Takata Motor Motor Research Institute in 1922. It then changed to Tokyo Hatsudoki Co Ltd (roughly translating to ‘Tokyo Engine Factory’) in 1939, hence the now the acronym company name ‘TOHATSU’.
In 1949 the company expanded further with the development and production of two stroke motorcycles which saw aggressive growth for the company. Due to the success of the motorcycles, dealerships were quickly set up throughout Japan. By the mid 1950’s Tohatsu held the top market share with 22% of the Japanese motorcycle market, selling both domestically and globally. Tohatsu also produced racing motorcycles which achieved great success in Japan and abroad.
In 1956 Tohatsu produced the very first Japanese outboard motor the OB2. Since then, Tohatsu outboards have served a variety of marketplaces such as: commercial fishing, military, marine transport, surf life saving, maritime rescue services, recreation and competition racing just to name a few.
Tohatsu are now officially the second largest producer of outboard motors in the world and have all models manufactured in Japan rather than following the recent trend of other brands outsourcing manufacturing to other countries such as China and Thailand.
