The inventor of the four wheel drive and the engine used in the Type 95 is also the founder of the Japanese Internal Combustion Engine Company, Tetsuji Makita. Mr. Makita was one of Japan's first automobile engineers during the 1920s-1930s, and worked with Toyogawa Hayataya, who built the first automobile in Japan called the "Otomo" which was built by "Hakuyosha Ironworks, Inc." one of the first Japanese automobile manufacturers. Mr. Makita and the Japan Internal Combustion Engine Company had been at the time established as a leading manufacturer of the Japanese market automobiles, Auto rickshaws, and motorized tricycles, competing initially with Datsun and Mazda, with Mitsubishi and The Hope Automobile Company (later reorganized as Suzuki) after the war. To set themselves as leading-edge Japanese manufacturers, the term "New Era" was used to advertise new, in-house developed engines in 1926, to coincide with the end of the Emperor Taishō era that ushered in the Emperor Shōwa era. Through a series of company reorganizations, the company was later renamed Kurogane (The word is an old term for iron).