All you need to know about Toyota
It's probably appropriate that what now glories in the tag 'The Best-built Car in the World' was founded by the son of a man known as the 'King of Inventors', Sakichi Toyoda.
Son Kiichiro Toyoda actually garnered the money to develop his first automobiles by selling the patent rights of one of his father's textile machines to a British company.
Originally named after the family, Toyoda changed the company title after holding a competition for a new name. In its Japanese version, the eight characters which spell the name is considered a lucky number.
The onset of war suspended automotive activities in Japan and it wasn't until 1947 that the company produced its first car, the SA. Three years later Toyota suffered its first, and only, strike. It was such a bruising encounter that both sides came out of the event convinced that absolute co-operation and trust between management and workers was the only way forward.
After that, the company worked assiduously on the development of better production systems, and by the late 1950s had achieved much of what was to become known in 1970 as the Toyota Production System, based on the principles of Jikado, JIT and Kaizen, and geared to reduce both inventories and defects to the absolute minimum. It's through the development of the TPS Toyota gained the 'Best-built Car in the World' sobriquet, following the publication of an expert study on that theme.
Although Toyota produces more than 50 'families' of car models, probably the best known in these islands is the Corolla, which in a way defines the story of Toyota for many people.
An affordable, small family car, it's now in its ninth generation since it was originally introduced in 1966 as a 2-door saloon.
Corolla switched to front-wheel drive with the fifth generation version in 1983, and independent suspension also arrived at this time. Then too the wagon was moved from being a three-door to five-door, though still built on the old rear-drive platform, and it wasn't until 1987 that it became a front-wheel-drive vehicle.
Since then the mainstay car has evolved to become one of the nicest-styled notchbacks in its class, and many would say it at least matches the benchmark VW Golf in its current incarnation as a five-door hatch. The fact that it effectively names its segment here says much for the popularity it has achieved.
Other than that model, in Ireland the car that has now become the Avensis has retained the 'best in segment' sales performance for more than a dozen years, initially as Carina, then Carina E. Now under the new name, and a totally new body that is more European in style, it has become the first European-manufactured Toyota to be exported to Japan.
Worldwide, Toyota is the third-largest carmaker, and has recently become third-largest in the US. The company produces almost six million cars a year, or around one every six seconds. It designs and manufactures in its major markets with models specificially for those markets, a practice begun as far back as 1959 when the company set up its first non-Japanese factory in Brazil.
Best Car: The Camry before the current model.
Worst Car: The Corolla before the current one.
Weirdest Car: p.o.d. shown in Tokyo in 2001