Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki-gaisha or Toyota for short is actually the largest car maker in the entire world, bigger than Ford, GM and anyone else. Their history, like many other car producers, starts with some other product, in this case automatic looms. At some point, in 1933, Kiichiro Toyoda, son to Toyota's founder, decided he wanted to build cars and so he took a trip to Europe to get an idea about gas-powered engines. The government encouraged such a bold decision mostly because making their own cars would be cheaper and they also needed vehicles for the war with China. Just a year after its foundation in 1933, the Toyota Motor Company created its first engine, the Type A, placed in the Model A1 passenger car and the G1 truck. During WWII, Toyota was committed to making trucks for the army and only the premature ending of the conflict saved the company's factories in Aichi from a scheduled Allied bomb raid. After the war, Toyota resumed car making but found more success in building trucks and buses than with cars. Still, it didn't give up on cars for good and in 1947 it came up with the Model SA, also known as the Toyopet, a name which later was applied to other models as well. Toyota set up a headquarters in Hollywood in 1957; the first Toyota car registered in the United States was a 1958 Toyopet, sold in 1958; the California license plate was installed by Toyota Motor Sales (USA) president Shotaro Kamiya himself, in front of the California DMV. Two vehicles were imported, the Land Cruiser and Toyopet. Neither sold well; the Toyopet was withdrawn while Toyota designed a car specifically modified for the American market – a strategy which later gave us the Avalon and Camry. In 1959, the company opened its first plant outside Japan - in Brazil. From that point on, Toyota maintained a philosophy of localizing both production and design of its products (that is, adapting vehicles to the places they will be used, as well as building them there). This builds long-term relationships with local suppliers and local labor. Part of this also means that Toyota does not merely build vehicles overseas, but also designs them there, with a network of both design and R&D facilities in North America and Europe. By 1967, Toyota had become well established in the United States, albeit as a niche player. The Corona four-door sedan was seen as competing mainly against the Volkswagen Beetle, though this was hardly fair to the modern Corona, with its relatively large interior space and relatively comfortable ride. The Corona was known from its early days for quality as well as a low price, though rust was a serious problem until the late 1970s, causing more than one Corona to simply rust in half before it became old enough to have mechanical problems. Soon, Toyota brought to the US the famous but rare 2000GT, which resembled a British sports car with a massive hood and nearly no cabin or trunk. The car had set 16 world speed and endurance records by 1966, with a dual overhead cam six-cylinder engine (150 hp, 121 cid) and five-speed manual transmission. A specially made convertible version was featured in You only live twice. The 2000 GT had surprisingly slow 0-60 times of over 10 seconds, but cornering apparently made up for it, and the quarter-mile went by in a decent enough 15.9 seconds (about the same as a 1995 Neon). Not quite a muscle car, but it probably handled better than the best Detroit had to offer. Toyota also had a variety of trucks for sale in the late 1960s, as detailed in our various truck pages (see the top-of-page menu). The Corolla, to be America’s favorite small car, was first imported in 1969, two years after its first Japanese production, followed by small pickups that earned a strong reputation for reliability and durability. It was the first Toyota built in the United States, starting in 1985, at the New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) facility in Fremont, California — a joint venture with General Motors. Presently, Toyota is at the forefront of the environmental battle, with its successful hybrid model, the Toyota Prius and now announcing a plug-in electric car that will be called Toyota Plug-in HV, which will run on standard electricity powered by a lithium-ion battery pack. Today, Toyota is one of the world's largest manufacturers of automobiles in both unit sales and in net sales. In the United States, Toyota has roughly double the sales of Honda and is battling GM and Ford for #1. It produces over 5.5 million vehicles per year, equivalent to one every six seconds. Toyota has tried, partly through sponsorship of numerous events, participation in many racing venues (including NASCAR), public relations around its (largely nonunion and Southern) American assembly plants, and other means, to position itself as just another American company, though no Americans appear to participate in serious decision-making at the Japan headquarters.
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