Zexel

Zexel is a Japanese auto-components manufacturer. It was founded in 1939 as Diesel Kiki Co., Ltd., under a Bosch license, for domestic production of fuel-injection pumps for diesel engines. Originally established with an investment from Isuzu Motors Ltd., (a major Japanese manufacturer of engines for heavy-duty vehicles), this company was renamed ZEXEL Corp. in 1990. Diesel-Kiki entered into a joint venture in the United States with Wynns Climate Systems to begin manufacturing automotive HVAC systems in approximately 1987. The company was called Wynn-Kiki at the time and was the predecessor to ZEXEL USA. The ZEXEL rebranding was a two year project involving a world-wide name search and complete marketing strategy analysis. The company logo featured red, white and blue colors picked to represent precision, technology and excellence. A CD was even distributed to employees featuring a new company theme song. The name itself was compiled of the "Z" from zenith, because the company reached the zenith of its performance under its old name of Diesel-Kiki, and the word "excel" because the company wanted to excel at customer satisfaction. Somehow in their translation though, it came out ZEXEL instead of ZEXCEL.