But this global auto industry player – now the ninth largest in the world with annual sales topping two million – spent much of the first half of that century spinning its wheels in a decidedly different fashion.

The first Suzuki nameplate was attached to a pedal-powered weaving loom created by the Suzuki Jidosha Kogyo (Suzuki Loom Works), founded in the seacoast village of Hamamatsu, Japan by 22-year-old Michio Suzuki in 1909. By the 1920s it was one of the largest loom producers in Japan.

Having achieved success, Michio Suzuki was looking for something new to direct his company’s energies toward. During the ’30s, Japan imported the majority of its motor vehicles as its own auto industry was still in its infancy. Suzuki saw potential in getting in on the local action.

But by the late 1930s it had only developed a prototype passenger car (some say inspired by the Austin Seven, already copied by BMW and Nissan), and the advent of the Second World War meant the brakes were slammed on the project. The company survived to play a role in Japan’s post-war reconstruction, but by the early ’50s, it was in financial difficulties. Michio Suzuki’s son Shunzo then came up with the idea (as legend has it) that saved the company, while pedaling his bike home from a fishing trip in 1951.

Attaching a small motor to a bicycle frame wasn’t exactly a new idea – a certain Soichiro Honda had already been doing it for some years – but Suzuki’s engineers soon created a neat little two-stroke unit with a novel drive system. It launched the company into a new, modern era in 1952.

The putt-putting Suzuki Power Free soon developed into a range of motorcycles that eventually established the brand as one of Japan’s big four bike makers, and it went on to rack up numerous World Championships.

By 1955, and now called Suzuki Motor Company Ltd., it had developed its first production car, the tiny Suzulight, a front-driver powered by a 360 cc engine. It was one of Japan’s first keijidosha or kei cars, a segment it currently tops.

It went on to develop more mini-cars and then a range of tiny but feisty four-wheel-drive vehicles, the LJ series of the 1970s.

Today the Suzuki name can be found attached to one of the world’s most powerful motorcycles – the Hayabusa which produces 194 hp and can reach 303 km/h – a range of cars and sport utes, all-terrain vehicles and a diverse range of products including outboard motors, boats, pre-fabricated housing, conventional generators, wind-power generators and medical equipment.

It currently operates in 187 countries and its Wagon R minicar is the best-selling vehicle in Japan. Interestingly it also commands more than 50 per cent of the car market in India. A couple of years ago it announced an aggressive plan to grow sales to more than three million units by decade’s end.

Helping it reach that goal will be the new and stylish Kisashi mid-size sedan, which will arrive in Canada this winter powered by a 2.4 litre four-cylinder engine with six-speed manual or paddle-shifted CVT transmission and available all-wheel-drive system. It will round out the strongest Canadian lineup the company has ever fielded, which includes the subcompact Swift+, the SX4 compact (which has already boosted sales significantly), the compact Grand Vitara, and the Equator pickup.

Given the current global economic downturn, all bets are off on reaching its sales target, but Suzuki’s Canadian operation is currently operating with the throttle wide open nevertheless.

Suzuki motorcycles were sold through a distributor in Canada during the 1960s, but it wasn’t until 1973 that Suzuki Canada was founded as a subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation. Headquartered in Downsview, a suburb of Toronto, its role was to supply machines and parts to Canadian bike dealers.

The LJ80 was the first Suzuki four-wheeler to arrive here in 1980, followed by the Samurai and the Sidekick. In 1984 it introduced its first passenger car, the Forsa. A link between Suzuki and General Motors resulted in the joint venture CAMI Automotive Inc. plant, which opened in Ingersoll, Ont., in 1989.

But despite the continued popularity of its motorcycles Suzuki has never managed to break through on the four-wheeler side, although new products and a more aggressive approach in recent years promise to change that. Sales in 2006 were just 8,813, but in 2008 despite a tough year-end it posted a total of 13,554. Its target this year is 15,000, but matching last year would be an achievement in the current marketplace.

Awareness is the key issue. “We need to get to 20,000 quickly,” says Bill Porter, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, who joined the company three years ago. That figure is seen as a critical mass sales point which would allow the company to seriously expand its marketing efforts.

Suzuki as a motorcycle brand is very strong, Porter says but on the four-wheel side, “we really haven’t pushed hard in this market. There’s a lot of grass roots work that has to be done. We need Suzuki to pop up on people’s consideration list.”

And that’s what the company’s focus will be in the year ahead, he says. “We’ve hit a speed bump, but we’re not backing up.”