The predecessor of Kawamura Cycle was a premium bicycle manufacturer based in the Suma district of Kobe, with a history stretching back more than 80 years.
In the middle of a structural recession in the bicycle industry, the company was devastated by the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Company president Tamio Murayama recognized a bright future in wheelchairs to secure employment and the company’s future. At the time, wheelchairs accounted for less than 10% of sales, but the company reemerged from the rubble in 1995 as a dedicated wheelchair manufacturer.

As the latest manufacture to enter the wheelchair market, we carefully considered problems facing wheelchair users, and the first solution was to build lighter wheelchairs. By leveraging and applying the know-how accumulated through experience making premium lightweight bicycles to what were then standard, heavy steel wheelchairs, we successfully transitioned to a mass-producer of lightweight aluminum wheelchairs.

Kobe is a city that skillfully blends a warm and welcoming culture with the stylish, modern and exotic. Kawamura Cycle aspires to be a wheelchair manufacturer that forever values and evolves in tune with the culture that is quintessentially Kobe.