Sarao Motors


Sarao Motors, Inc. is a Filipino automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Brgy. Pulang Lupa in the city of Las Piñas in Metro Manila, Philippines. The company designs, engineers, manufactures and distributes the jeepney, the most popular form of transportation in the country, labeled as the 'king of the road' in the Philippines.
The company was first established as a small automotive shop in 1953 by starting entrepreneur Leonardo Sarao, a mechanic and a former calesa driver. From an initial budget of ₱700, the company grew into a multimillion corporation. At its peak, the ratio of Sarao jeepneys rolling the streets of Manila outnumbered other names by nearly 7 to 1, the name Sarao became synonymous with the vehicle.
Sarao promoted the jeepney as a symbol of Philippine culture. A Sarao was exhibited at the Philippine pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair as a national image for the Filipinos. In 1971, a Sarao jeepney traveled from Manila to London and all over Europe as the Phlippine icon of the London-Manila Express, a roadshow sponsored by the Philippine Tourism and Travel Association to boost the country's tourism and industry to European countries.
Sarao is also a manufacturer of owner-type, custom-built jeepneys and other type of vehicles for schools, businesses and other institutions. Pope John Paul II rode on a specially built owner-type jeepney by Sarao during his first travel to the country in 1981.
On October 2, 2000 Sarao Motors was forced to halt jeepney production due to rising costs. Sarao Motors' employees were downsized from 300 to only 50. The collection department was the only part of the company that remained operational. Sarao Motors eventually resumed its operation albeit in a lesser scale.