The Prodigy Son Of An Engineer Who Built Toyota

It goes without saying that without ever having driven a Toyota Corolla, you'll never truly appreciate a car as a tool that stays with you for life. How did one of the most recognizable names in the global automotive industry get its start? Find out today. The man responsible for modern Toyota, Kiichiro Toyota, was born on June 11, as the oldest child of Sakachi Toyota, an engineer, and Tami Sahara. Growing up as a child interested in the sciences, he would soon enroll in university to pursue his desired subject. He received his degree from Tokyo Imperial University's Faculty of Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1920. He remained at Tokyo Imperial University's Faculty of Law for roughly seven months following graduation, leaving not long afterward. Nevertheless, he soon joined his father's company, known as Toyota Boshoku back then. Responsible for making machine tools and parts for industrial looms, Kiichiro traveled to San Francisco, London, and Oldham between July 1921 and February 1922 to learn about the spinning and weaving industry. And then he returned from Marseille via Shanghai, but was also starting to get interested in the automobile industry. It may be surprising to some, but the company did not start with making anything remotely related to automobiles. Sakachi Toyota invented the Toyota Automatic Model G loom in 1926, a much-welcome innovation at the time in Japan because it stopped itself when an issue occurred. With that, he constituted Toyota Industries Corporation Limited, of which he made his son managing director. Kiichiro had always wanted to turn the business into an automaker. Seeking to capitalize upon a new technology he sincerely believed Japan would benefit from greatly. A visit to Europe and the USA in 1929 would only confirm his beliefs. The automatic loom patent was sold to the British company Platt Brothers in the same year, providing the seed money for the creation of automobiles. Toyota Industries Corporation first established an automobile manufacturing division in 1933. Later, in 1936, the Automotive Manufacturing Act designated it as a licensed company. Its first production vehicle, the Model AA sedan, was unveiled in 1936 and was heavily influenced by the Chrysler-DeSoto airflow. It adhered to prevailing automotive conventions of the time through its design. The following year, in 1937, it became independent as Toyota Motor Corporation, and in the same year, Kiichiro became vice president. New designers were being considered, but since World War II's Pacific Theater was at its height, the Toyota family would be impacted on both the domestic and professional fronts. Civil repercussions would cause his children's education to be delayed, and his company would be forced to produce trucks for the Imperial Japanese Army. Despite the fact that full passenger car production was not permitted in Japan until 1949, a small number of cars were able to be built starting in 1947. One of these cars was the Toyota SA, which made his perseverance worthwhile. When the GHQ announced that authorized commercial production of vehicles for the general public would soon begin, design work began at the end of 1945. In January 1947, the car was released to lukewarm reception and sales. It was enough to get Toyota moving forward nonetheless, but not for long. Japanese automakers were permitted to resume making passenger cars, but at the same time, a new program to stabilize the economy and reduce inflation caused a severe cash shortage in the automotive sector, leading to many truck owners defaulting on their loans. In the end, the company was saved by the Bank of Japan, the nation's central bank. Toyota emerged from its financial crisis at the start of the 1950s as a smaller business, closing factories and firing employees. The Korean War began around the same time, and due to its proximity to the front lines, the U.S. Army ordered 1,000 trucks from Toyota. The order assisted in significantly enhancing the struggling company's operational performance. Company executives traveled to the United States in 1950, including Kichiro's cousin Eiji Toyota, for training at the Ford Motor Company and to observe the operations of numerous American manufacturers. The Toyota Way, a management philosophy and the Toyota production system, a lean manufacturing technique which would make the company a leader in the manufacturing industry, were born from the knowledge they learned during the trip and what the company learned about making looms. The Toyota Crown, Toyota's first complete passenger vehicle, was under development beginning in January 1952. Before the Crown, Toyota outsourced the design and production of car bodies, which were then mounted on Toyota-made truck frames. The task was a significant test for Toyota because it required the company to create bodies and create a new chassis that would be comfortable while also enduring the sluggish, unpaved roads that were prevalent in Japan at the time. Kichiro Toyota passed away in 1952, sadly, before he could see the Crown to the sales door. Eiji Toyota took over, and after some time spent refocusing development, the Crown was released to sales in 1955. The car received favorable reviews from all over the world, and today's gorgeous high-end vehicles from Toyota still sport the Crown nameplate. Following the release of the Crown, Toyota aggressively grew its export business. In November 1955, Toyota started sending Land Cruiser knockdown kits to Latin America. In 1956, as part of the Japanese government's war reparations, it sent full Land Cruisers to the Philippines and Burma, now Myanmar. In June 1957, Toyota opened a branch in Thailand. In August 1957, it sent Land Cruisers to Australia. The first production facility for Toyota outside of Japan was established in Brazil in 1958. The Land Cruiser, of course, needs no introduction. It holds the honor of being the most popular SUV of all time. The Japanese economy experienced a boom at the beginning of the 1960s, which is when the Japanese economic miracle is said to have occurred. As the economy expanded, so did the average person's income, and they were now able to afford to buy a car. Toyota and other automakers began offering inexpensive economy cars like the Toyota Corolla at the same time that the Japanese government invested heavily in enhancing road infrastructure. This is a nameplate that has become a household name all over the world, offering many people their first chance at car ownership. The Japanese auto market began to open up slightly to foreign automakers in the 1960s as well. Toyota invested in other Japanese automakers in an effort to support the country's auto industry in advance of the market's opening. Included in that were a stake in Hino Motors, a producer of substantial commercial trucks, buses, and diesel engines, as well as a 16.8% stake in Daihatsu, a producer of Kei Cars, the smallest highway legal passenger cars offered in Japan. That would mark the beginning of what would turn into a long-lasting alliance between the two companies. Eiji Toyota resigned from his position as president in 1981 and was given the title of chairman instead. The company's founder's son, Soichiro Toyota, took over as president after him. Soichiro began to combine Toyota's production and sales organizations within a few months, and the resulting business became the Toyota Motor Corporation in 1982. The two organizations were compared to oil and water, and it took Soichiro years of leadership to successfully unite them into one. But the hard work was worth it as the company and General Motors, GM, agreed to collaborate on the construction of NUMMI, New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, in Fremont, California in 1984. GM viewed the joint venture as a chance to learn more about the Toyota way and the Toyota production system, as well as a way to gain access to a reliable small car. Toyota saw GM as a partner who could teach them how to navigate the American labor environment, and the factory gave the company its first manufacturing base in North America, allowing it to avoid any future tariffs on imported vehicles. At the beginning of the 1980s, Toyota won its first Japanese Quality Control Award and started competing in a variety of motorsports, regularly appearing in the highest tier of rally racing and other events. Before the decade was over, Toyota unveiled Lexus, a brand-new division created to sell and maintain luxury cars in foreign markets. Before Lexus was introduced, Toyota's two existing flagship models, the Crown and Century, were both geared solely toward the Japanese market, and lacked a strong enough global presence to compete with other top luxury manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Jaguar. Since August 1983, the company had invested more than $1 billion in developing the name and its fleet of vehicles undercover. The Lexus brand was successfully introduced in 1989, thanks in large part to the LS400 flagship full-size sedan, which made its debut to strong sales. In the 1990s, Toyota started to diversify from making primarily small cars by adding a variety of larger and more opulent vehicles to its lineup, such as a full-sized pickup truck called the T100, several lines of SUVs, and a sportier version of the Camry called the Camry Solara. During this time, they would also introduce updated versions of their sports cars, including the MR2, Celica, and Supra. The trio of sports cars from Toyota would go on to become some of the most recognizable sports cars in history. Not only did drivers adore these cars for being able to provide a thrilling driving experience at an affordable price, but they also went on to influence car enthusiasts' culture itself, spawning films such as The Fast and the Furious and games such as Need for Speed Underground that would immortalize them as hallowed creations. The first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, made its debut in December 1997. For the first two years, the vehicle would only be produced for the Japanese market before being exported globally. The company changed its aesthetic design language for the 2000s and began competing in Formula One in 2002. Despite the fact that many consumers disapproved of the design decisions made for these cars, Toyota nonetheless made them extremely durable and sales continued to soar as a result. On Forbes 2000's list of the top companies in the world in 2005, Toyota came in at number 517. Two years later, in 2007, Toyota updated its full-size truck, the Tundra, which was built in two American factories, one in Texas and one in Indiana, two years earlier. The 2007 Toyota Camry was named Car of the Year by Motor Trend. In addition, it started the construction of two new factories, one in Canada's Woodstock, Ontario, and the other in the United States' Blue Springs. The company was not completely safe, though. Toyota was adversely affected by the global financial crisis of 2008 as a result of being forced to predict its first annual loss in 70 years in December of 2008. To decrease production and inventories of unsold vehicles, it announced in January 2009 that all of its Japanese plants would be shut down for 11 days. Toyota recalled millions of vehicles between 2009 and 2011 in response to reports that a number of drivers had experienced unexpected acceleration. The purpose of these recalls was to stop a floor mat on the front driver's side from sliding into the foot pedal well and trapping the pedals, as well as to fix any potential mechanical sticking of the accelerator pedal. The company was further sued for personal injuries and wrongful deaths, paid $1 billion U.S. to settle a class-action lawsuit to compensate owners for lost resale value, and paid $1.2 billion U.S. as a criminal penalty to the U.S. government over claims that it had purposefully concealed information about safety defects and had made misleading statements. At least 37 people were killed in crashes allegedly caused by unintended acceleration. Nearly 9 million cars and trucks were also recalled. Since 1999, a member of the Toyota family had not been in charge. Katsuake Watanabe resigned as president of the company amid the unintended acceleration scandal. On June 23, 2009, he was replaced by Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the business owner's founder, Kiichiro Toyoda. Since joining Toyota in 1984, Akio has held positions in production, marketing, and product development. In 2000, he was elected to the board of directors. However, soon Toyota and a sizable portion of the Japanese automotive industry both experienced a series of natural disasters in 2011. The supplier base was severely disrupted by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which also caused a decline in production and exports. Japanese automakers that had chosen Thailand as a production base were impacted by the severe flooding that occurred during the 2011 monsoon season in Thailand. According to estimates, Toyota lost 240,000 units of production due to floods and 150,000 units due to the tsunami. None of the misfortune was bound to be permanent, however, as the automaker sold 5.1 million vehicles in the six months that ended on June 30, 2014, an increase of 3.8% over the same period in 2013. This resulted in the automaker narrowly topping global sales for the first half of 2014. Volkswagen AG followed closely behind with sales of 5.07 million automobiles. Toyota was able to invest in the development of hybrid powertrains and eventually EVs thanks to the additional profits, even though their efforts ultimately fell short of Tesla's. Then again, that was not to last for too long. In August 2016, the companies acquired all of Daihatsu's remaining assets, turning the small car manufacturer into a fully-owned Toyota subsidiary and enabling them to enter more Japanese domestic market segments, including the K-Car. During this time, Toyota's redesigned iterations of their famous old nameplates such as the Corolla, Crown, Prius, and Camry went on to wow customers. They also invested heavily into hydrogen fuel cell research to produce the Mirai, remaining firm believers when everyone else was ready to write it off as useless technology. The current generation Mirai can go toe-to-toe in terms of range with battery electric vehicles. Briefly falling behind in advanced technologies such as autonomous driving, Toyota has caught up and is planning to soon overtake all the competition. The company is projected to keep going strong in the future with a bulletproof brand image and a large number of markets that are captivated, such as most of Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Their legacy is undeniable, with an enduring reputation for building good quality cars that last while also being affordable. It even extends to the Lexus sub-brand, which competes with BMW and Mercedes to often come out on top of them in terms of sheer sales. Everyone's favorite car company is here to stay and continue to deliver. It has not forgotten its roots either, as the original loom company from back then still exists. Have you already heard of the story of Toyota? And are there any other details that you would add to this video? 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