Search This Blog

Tuesday 30 October 2018

Toyota

While still a department of Toyota Industries, Toyota created its first product, the Type A engine in 1934, and its first passenger car in 1936, the Toyota AA.

Toyota Standard Sedan AA 1936. By BsBsBs

Toyota Motors was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda on August 28, 1937, as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles.

The first vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda"  from the family name of Kiichirō Toyoda. In 1936 the company decided for a new name and held a competition. Toyota was chosen out of the 27,000 entries because the number of strokes to write Toyota in Japanese (eight) was thought to bring luck and prosperity.

The Toyota Land Cruiser originated after the Imperial Japanese Army captured an American Jeep during World War II and ordered Toyota to reverse-engineer it. 

Introduced in 1966, the Toyota Corolla was the first mass-market car to have a radio fitted as standard. 

The Toyota Corolla was also the first Japanese car to threaten the American and European dominance of the industry, thanks to its efficiency. The Corolla was the best-selling motor vehicle worldwide by 1974 and has continued since then to be one of the best-selling cars in the world. 

The first commercial hybrid car, the Toyota Prius, first went on sale in Japan on December 10, 1997 and was launched worldwide three years later. 

The first Prius, model NHW10. By Benespit 

Since becoming fashionable among ecologically aware Hollywood celebrities the Toyota Prius has inspired a legion of impressionable "civilian" consumers to follow suit. Toyota Motor Company announced on March 11, 2009 it had sold over 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S.

As of January 2017, the Prius liftback is the world's top selling hybrid car with almost 4 million units sold.

A Swiss couple Emil and Liliana Schmid have earned their place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest driven journey in the same car. As of April 4, 2017 they had driven 741,065 km (460,476 miles) and traveled across 186 countries in the same Toyota Land Cruiser in a journey that started on October 18, 1984 and is still ongoing.

Today the Toyota Motor Corporation produces vehicles under five brands - the Toyota brand, Hino, Lexus, Ranz, and Daihatsu.

Toyota is the largest automobile manufacturer (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors. In 2012 Toyota became the world's first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year.


In 2017, Toyota's corporate structure consisted of 364,445 employees worldwide and, as of October 2016, it was the fifth-largest company in the world by revenue.

Toyota Motor unseated General Motors as the top-selling automaker in the United States in 2021, becoming the first manufacturer based outside the country to achieve that feat in the industry’s history.

The Toyota Supra which Brian drives at the end of Furious 7 actually belonged to the late actor Paul Walker.

Source The Independent

No comments:

Post a Comment