Toyota sold more vehicles globally in the third quarter of this year than Ford, making it the world's second-largest carmaker after General Motors, owners of the Opel marque, in that period.
Although Ford remains ahead of Toyota in sales this year to September, Toyota has a chance to retain its lead if Ford lowers production as forecast in the fourth quarter and can maintain current sales momentum.
The milestone comes two months after the Japanese carmaker leapfrogged Detroit's number three carmaker Chrysler - the US unit of Germany's DaimlerChrysler - in terms of sales.
Toyota sold 166,000 more vehicles than Ford did in the third quarter, according to Reuters. Toyota's total global sales were about 1.57m.
That is still way behind GM, which sold 6.4m worldwide in the same period.
GM regards Toyota as its main competitor globally. However, industry observers say Toyota's robust profits, huge cash pile, efficient manufacturing systems and extensive product research and development means it has the capacity to challenge GM for the top slot.
Toyota's market capitalisation is larger than the three Detroit carmakers combined. However, some observers point out that profitability is a more meaningful way of ranking the carmakers. On that, Toyota is already number one, last week reporting a record Y768bn (€6.2bn) first-half operating profit.