It was at a time when Toyota cars were still called ‘Toyopet’, Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" has just premiered, and Yamaha was expanding its offer of pianos and guitars, and preparing to launch its first motorbike. There was a lot going on in Japan in 1954, and it was then that Soft99 was born!
Soft99 is celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2024. We have proudly contributed to the great development of the automotive industry in post-war Japan, even though in the beginning we didn't deal with cars at all, and at first, we didn't even call ourselves Soft99! Brew yourself a good matcha and discover the 70 years of our company's history, which today is made up not only of offices or factories in Japan, but also boasts extensive operations and investments in Europe, Asia, or Australia.
1954: First there was Nittō
Yukichi Tanaka established a company called Nittō Chemical on 28 October 1954. A small office was located in the inner-city Chūō district of Osaka, and in the nearby Abeno district, production of the company's first ever product began: the first product rolling off the production line was called Golden Neo Polish wax. Wax? For cars, right? Well, not quite.
Golden Neo Polish was a wax for wooden furniture! It was particularly useful for maintaining the wooden casings of TV sets, gramophones, loudspeakers, and other devices which at the time were manufactured from wood.
The wax found its way into the hands of car owners when they wanted to keep their cars clean for longer. This was not only due to the typically Japanese attention to the cleanliness of the environment, but also to pragmatism.
Japan, which was rebuilding after the war, lacked paved roadways. The existing gravel roads would become heavily dusty in hot weather and during the rainy season turn into muddy streams that soiled everything on the car. In Japan, where expensive imported products for cars were hard to come by in the 1950s, the domestic Golden Neo Polish for keeping vehicles clean was as good as it gets.
1962: Neo Soft Wax with Soft99 branding
The automotive prowess of the Japanese has not escaped Mr Tanaka and his ever-expanding company. In 1958, the headquarters in Osaka was joined by an office in the capital, Tokyo, and just a few years later the company entered another industry: products for automotive care.
Launched in 1962, Neo Soft Wax was, true to its name, a soft car wax that was equipped with an admixture of anti-static compounds to counteract the build-up of dust and dirt on the car's paintwork. The product also used the name ‘Soft99’ for the first time, which at first was the identifying slogan specifically for the soft waxes manufactured by Nitto Chemical.
1989: Kobe plant, research and development centre in Sanda
Always associated with Osaka and the Kansai region, we built our new factory and R&D centre near the city limits of Kobe, Japan's eighth largest city, in a technology park in Sanda, Hyōgo Prefecture.
Located near the border of the city of Kobe, the Soft99 R&D Centre is first and foremost an extensive research infrastructure. It is here that we test the wetting angle, scratch resistance or other properties of our waxes, coatings or shampoos, while acquiring the world's most stringent chemical standards, the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) – a true mark of quality in the world of car care. We still manufacture all our chemical products at the Sanda factory today, so we can gladly confirm – your can of Fusso Coat was made in Japan!
Large infrastructure changes heralded major launches that Soft99 had been preparing for for a long time. But nobody quite predict that the upcoming batch of products would truly put Soft99 on an international map of car care!
1990 & 1991: World, say hello to Fusso and Glaco!
At the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, probably few people expected that such an earthquake could occur in the world of automotive care. In 1990, at a time when silicone- and resin-based waxes were commonplace, we developed our ‘wax-coating’ based on fluorine bonds, taking advantage of the strong repulsion of water and oil by these chemical compounds. The newly developed product was stain-resistant, safe and easy to apply even at one's own garage, and its durability of around 90 days was a real head-turner for the time.
Enclosed in an inconspicuous box, the wax with applicator was adorned with the name Fusso Coat, well known to all Soft99 fans. Since in Japanese ‘Fusso’ means ‘fluorine’, this name was attached to the unique wax, which in time would become a nothing short of a legend in the world of car care.
A year later, we made waves again. The prototype of today's easy-to-apply glass coatings, Glaco, was launched on the market. We got the name from a typically Japanese portmanteau combining the English words ‘glass’ and ‘coating’, and we branded the product its distinctive orange colour.
This was the first coating of this type to be produced in Japan, although the idea was not new: the concept behind Glaco was originally developed for use on the aircraft of Japan's state airlines, as help for pilots landing in unforgiving monsoon conditions. Glaco made a splash in the market for hydrophobic coatings for glass primarily due to its ease of application – which is why we continue to develop new coatings based on the felt applicator head to this day.
1993: becoming Soft99 Corporation
We operated as Nitto Chemical until 1993, eventually changing our name in homage to the wax that started it all. The aforementioned Neo Soft Wax, which adorned the Soft99 brand, gave rise to the renaming of the entire corporation to just Soft99.
As the authors of the change intended, ‘Soft’ corresponds to the flexibility of thinking and approach, and ‘99’ symbolises the never-ending determination to reach ‘100’, i.e. perfection. We can definitely sign up to this!
In 2000, we moved the company's headquarters to a new office in the heart of Osaka, vis-à-vis the 16th-century Osaka Castle. A year later, we finally accentuated the company's transformation by listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
2014: Soft99 Europe
We first entered the European continent as G'zox, a network of premium Japanese detailing studios, and later began the permanent sale of Soft99 products, which continues to this day, including modern European bestsellers such as Fusso Coat 12 Months, Ultra Glaco and Glaco Mirror Coat Zero, trusted by millions of car owners, motorbikes, bicycles, aircraft and boats. From our main office in the western Polish city of Poznań, we provide support to partners in 33 European countries.
The biggest development accent of the European part of Soft99, was the opening of Soft99 Garage, a full-scale automotive center, which combines a detailing studio, a car wash, a mechanical and tyre services, a vehicle inspection station (including facilities for aligning suspension geometry) and a Soft99 company shop. Located in the very centre of Poznań, Poland, the venue is a real gem in the crown of Soft99.
Future
What does the future hold? We are hoping for sheer prosperity! We have major Soft99 developments planned in Europe and, in the meantime, we want to continually provide you with extraordinary, high-quality car care products, proudly displaying ‘Made in Japan’ on them. Because after reading this article, you surely already know that this is more than just a slogan.
