50 Fun Facts About Toyota

The company was founded on 28 August 1937 by which member of the founding family?

The car business was spun off from Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, founded by his father Sakichi.

Why did the family firm's car business drop the 'Toyoda' spelling in favour of 'Toyota'?

Eight is considered lucky in Japan, and the new name also separated the company from the family.

To which British firm did Sakichi Toyoda sell his automatic loom patent in 1929?

Sakichi, the 'King of Japanese Inventors', built looms that stopped themselves when a thread broke, the origin of the jidoka principle.

What was Toyota's first passenger car, completed in April 1936?

The company later reached 300 million vehicles built by September 2023.

Toyota's home city in Aichi Prefecture renamed itself after the firm in 1959. What was it called before?

Koromo renamed itself on 1 January 1959 and twinned with Detroit a year later; the Lexus division is headquartered in nearby Nagoya.

Which two engineers developed the Toyota Production System between 1948 and 1975?

Its two pillars are just-in-time and jidoka, and it inspired the wider idea of lean manufacturing.

The Toyota Production System's just-in-time approach was famously inspired by what?

Work centres 'take' only the parts they need, which triggers restocking of just what was used, like a grocery shelf.

Which Japanese word for 'continuous improvement' is central to Toyota's philosophy?

Kanban are the cards that manage inventory, jidoka is 'automation with a human touch' and muda means waste.

Which root-cause technique, asking a question repeatedly, did Sakichi Toyoda pioneer?

Japan's Patent Office named him one of the Ten Japanese Great Inventors in 1973.

Since 1997 the best-selling car nameplate of all time has been which Toyota?

It overtook the Volkswagen Beetle and passed 50 million sales in 2021 across twelve generations.

The name of Toyota's best-selling compact comes from the Latin for what?

It links to Toyota's naming tradition around the Crown sedan; Camry likewise comes from the Japanese kanmuri, meaning crown.

In which year did the first-generation Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid car, go on sale in Japan?

The name is Latin for 'to go before'; it became Japan's best-selling vehicle in 2009 and passed 5 million sales by 2022.

What is the name of the drivetrain technology that combines engine and electric motor in the Prius?

The Prius went worldwide in 2000, and Toyota has since sold millions of hybrids across its range.

Which is Toyota's longest-running model series, in production since 1951?

It began as a Jeep-style utility vehicle built to a Korean War-era US specification and passed 10 million sales in 2019.

In 1954, Toyota named its longest-running 4x4 to sound as dignified as which British rival?

Hanji Umehara wanted a name that 'would not sound less dignified than those of our competitors'; the J70 series of 1984 is still built for Africa and the Middle East.

The name of the Hilux pickup, launched in 1968, is a blend of which two words?

In North America it was replaced by the Tacoma in 1995; cumulative global sales passed 17.7 million by 2017.

Which Toyota pickup replaced the Hilux in North America in 1995?

The Hilux carried on everywhere else and became a favourite of farmers, aid agencies and armies alike.

Toyota's luxury brand Lexus launched in the US in 1989 with which flagship sedan?

The 'F1' (Flagship One) project began in 1983 under Eiji Toyoda; the brand was not sold in Japan itself until 2005.

What was Lexus's original marketing slogan?

The name evolved from 'Alexis' with the i swapped for a u; the marketing team said it had no specific meaning.

Toyota's youth-oriented North American brand, launched in 2003 and closed in 2016, was called what?

Toyota took majority control of small-car maker Daihatsu in 1998 and bought truck maker Hino in 2001.

Toyota's first US car, in 1958, flopped. Which overpriced, underpowered model was it?

The company came back to dominate the market, and by 2020 had reclaimed the title of world's largest automaker from Volkswagen.

Toyota's 1984 joint-venture plant with General Motors in Fremont, California, was known by which acronym?

The first American-built Toyota, a white Corolla, rolled off its line on 7 October 1986; the site is now Tesla's factory.

Toyota's first wholly owned US plant, opened in 1988, is in which Kentucky town?

Its first vehicle was a Camry prototype on 26 May 1988; the plant can now build 550,000 vehicles a year.

The Camry's name comes from a Japanese word meaning what?

Kanmuri; worldwide Camry sales passed 22 million by 2026.

What does the name RAV4 stand for?

Launched in 1994, it is credited as the first modern compact crossover and passed 15 million sales by 2025.

Which electric carmaker helped Toyota build the second-generation RAV4 EV in 2012?

In February 2025 the RAV4 replaced the Ford F-150 as the best-selling vehicle in the United States.

The Supra's name comes from a Latin prefix meaning what?

It began life as the Celica Supra in 1978; the fifth generation is built alongside the BMW Z4 by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria.

Which legendary engine family powered the fourth-generation (A80) Supra?

The twin-turbo 2JZ-GTE made 276 to 321 hp depending on market and became a tuner favourite.

Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell car, launched in Japan in December 2014, has a name meaning what?

The Mirai was the first mass-produced fuel-cell vehicle sold commercially, with a range of about 312 miles.

How did Toyota's 2009-2011 recall crisis over unintended acceleration end in the US?

President Akio Toyoda testified before a House committee on 24 February 2010.

Akio Toyoda, president from 2009 to 2023, races under which pseudonym?

The founder's grandson helped develop the GR Yaris as a test driver and handed the presidency to a successor in April 2023.

Toyota became the first carmaker to produce more than 10 million vehicles in a single year in which year?

The company employs roughly 384,000 people worldwide.

Toyota's factory Formula One team competed from 2002 to 2009 with what result?

Fourth in the 2005 constructors' championship with five podiums was as good as it got.

In which year did Toyota finally win the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

Two years earlier the TS050 Hybrid had led for 23 hours and 55 minutes before failing on the final lap.

Toyota entered NASCAR's top series in 2007 with which model?

Kyle Busch gave the manufacturer its first drivers' championship in 2015 and another in 2019.

Toyota won its first World Rally Championship manufacturers' titles in which years?

The company returned to the WRC in 2017 under the Toyota Gazoo Racing banner and has added several more titles since.

In which year did Toyota adopt its three-oval logo?

The same year saw the launch of Lexus and the LS 400.

Toyota's youth brand aside, which small-car maker did Toyota take majority control of in 1998?

Toyota also holds a 20% stake in Subaru and bought truck and bus builder Hino in 2001.

Toyota Motor Corporation formed in 1982 by merging the carmaker with which sister firm?

The sales arm had been split off in 1950 during a financial crisis.

Toyota announced in 2014 that it would stop manufacturing vehicles in which country by the end of 2017?

The Land Cruiser nonetheless remains the best-selling body-on-frame 4x4 there.

Roughly how many vehicles a year did Toyota build in 2023 as the world's largest carmaker?

Toyota reclaimed the top spot from Volkswagen in 2020 and built roughly 10 million vehicles a year through the early 2020s.

Who succeeded Akio Toyoda as Toyota's president and CEO in April 2023?

Toyoda moved up to chairman after 14 years running the company.

Toyota's first production facility outside Japan opened in 1958 in which country?

It came the same year Toyota tried, and failed, to crack the US market with the Toyopet Crown.

Which country did Toyota enter in 1955 with Land Cruisers, its first push into exports?

The deal was struck with Abdul Latif Jameel, and Land Cruisers reached neighbouring Yemen the following year.

Toyota's test town, Woven City, broke ground in 2021 at the foot of which mountain?

Construction began in February 2021 on a 175-acre site where residents take part in autonomous-vehicle experiments.

In 2021 Toyota agreed to buy Lyft's self-driving technology unit for how much?

The unit was folded into Toyota's new Woven Planet Holdings automation division.

Toyota Motor North America is headquartered in which Texas city?

The current company was formed in 2017 by consolidating three separate North American Toyota entities.

Toyota Motor Europe is headquartered in which city?

It oversees nine European factories, from Burnaston in England to Arifiye in Turkey, plus a joint plant with Citroën and Peugeot.

In 2004 Toyota showed off a robot that could play which musical instrument?

Toyota later developed a thought-controlled wheelchair interface and helped build the robotic astronaut Kirobo.

The NBA arena called Toyota Center is in which city?

Toyota also holds the naming rights to a second Toyota Center in Kennewick, Washington.