This Toyota trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the company from Sakichi Toyoda's automatic looms and the 1937 founding through the Corolla, Prius, Land Cruiser, Hilux, Camry, RAV4 and Supra, the birth of Lexus, the Toyota Production System that gave the world lean manufacturing, the US plants and the 2009-11 recall crisis, and Toyota's long road to victory at Le Mans, the WRC and NASCAR. It works for car-club nights, dealership team quizzes and anyone who has owned a Corolla and wondered why it says 'Toyota' rather than 'Toyoda' on the badge. Questions run from easy brand facts to expert production and motorsport history. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The company was founded on 28 August 1937 by which member of the founding family?
Kiichiro
The car business was spun off from Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, founded by his father Sakichi.
Q 02Why did the family firm's car business drop the 'Toyoda' spelling in favour of 'Toyota'?
The new spelling takes eight brush strokes, a lucky number
Eight is considered lucky in Japan, and the new name also separated the company from the family.
Q 03To which British firm did Sakichi Toyoda sell his automatic loom patent in 1929?
Platt Brothers
Sakichi, the 'King of Japanese Inventors', built looms that stopped themselves when a thread broke, the origin of the jidoka principle.
Q 04What was Toyota's first passenger car, completed in April 1936?
The Model AA
The company later reached 300 million vehicles built by September 2023.
Q 05Toyota's home city in Aichi Prefecture renamed itself after the firm in 1959. What was it called before?
Koromo
Koromo renamed itself on 1 January 1959 and twinned with Detroit a year later; the Lexus division is headquartered in nearby Nagoya.
Q 06Which two engineers developed the Toyota Production System between 1948 and 1975?
Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda
Its two pillars are just-in-time and jidoka, and it inspired the wider idea of lean manufacturing.
Q 07The Toyota Production System's just-in-time approach was famously inspired by what?
Supermarket shelves
Work centres 'take' only the parts they need, which triggers restocking of just what was used, like a grocery shelf.
Q 08Which Japanese word for 'continuous improvement' is central to Toyota's philosophy?
Kaizen
Kanban are the cards that manage inventory, jidoka is 'automation with a human touch' and muda means waste.
Q 09Which root-cause technique, asking a question repeatedly, did Sakichi Toyoda pioneer?
The 5 Whys
Japan's Patent Office named him one of the Ten Japanese Great Inventors in 1973.
Q 10Since 1997 the best-selling car nameplate of all time has been which Toyota?
Corolla
It overtook the Volkswagen Beetle and passed 50 million sales in 2021 across twelve generations.
Q 11The name of Toyota's best-selling compact comes from the Latin for what?
Small crown
It links to Toyota's naming tradition around the Crown sedan; Camry likewise comes from the Japanese kanmuri, meaning crown.
Q 12In which year did the first-generation Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid car, go on sale in Japan?
1997
The name is Latin for 'to go before'; it became Japan's best-selling vehicle in 2009 and passed 5 million sales by 2022.
Q 13What is the name of the drivetrain technology that combines engine and electric motor in the Prius?
Hybrid Synergy Drive
The Prius went worldwide in 2000, and Toyota has since sold millions of hybrids across its range.
Q 21Toyota's first US car, in 1958, flopped. Which overpriced, underpowered model was it?
The Toyopet Crown
The company came back to dominate the market, and by 2020 had reclaimed the title of world's largest automaker from Volkswagen.
Q 22Toyota's 1984 joint-venture plant with General Motors in Fremont, California, was known by which acronym?
NUMMI
The first American-built Toyota, a white Corolla, rolled off its line on 7 October 1986; the site is now Tesla's factory.
Q 23Toyota's first wholly owned US plant, opened in 1988, is in which Kentucky town?
Georgetown
Its first vehicle was a Camry prototype on 26 May 1988; the plant can now build 550,000 vehicles a year.
Q 14Which is Toyota's longest-running model series, in production since 1951?
Land Cruiser
It began as a Jeep-style utility vehicle built to a Korean War-era US specification and passed 10 million sales in 2019.
Q 15In 1954, Toyota named its longest-running 4x4 to sound as dignified as which British rival?
Land Rover
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.
Q 16The name of the Hilux pickup, launched in 1968, is a blend of which two words?
High and luxury
In North America it was replaced by the Tacoma in 1995; cumulative global sales passed 17.7 million by 2017.
Q 17Which Toyota pickup replaced the Hilux in North America in 1995?
Tacoma
The Hilux carried on everywhere else and became a favourite of farmers, aid agencies and armies alike.
Q 18Toyota's luxury brand Lexus launched in the US in 1989 with which flagship sedan?
The LS 400
The 'F1' (Flagship One) project began in 1983 under Eiji Toyoda; the brand was not sold in Japan itself until 2005.
Q 19What was Lexus's original marketing slogan?
The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
The name evolved from 'Alexis' with the i swapped for a u; the marketing team said it had no specific meaning.
Q 20Toyota's youth-oriented North American brand, launched in 2003 and closed in 2016, was called what?
Scion
Toyota took majority control of small-car maker Daihatsu in 1998 and bought truck maker Hino in 2001.
Q 24The Camry's name comes from a Japanese word meaning what?
Crown
Kanmuri; worldwide Camry sales passed 22 million by 2026.
Q 25What does the name RAV4 stand for?
Recreational Active Vehicle 4-wheel drive
Launched in 1994, it is credited as the first modern compact crossover and passed 15 million sales by 2025.
Q 26Which electric carmaker helped Toyota build the second-generation RAV4 EV in 2012?
Tesla
In February 2025 the RAV4 replaced the Ford F-150 as the best-selling vehicle in the United States.
Q 27The Supra's name comes from a Latin prefix meaning what?
Above or beyond
It began life as the Celica Supra in 1978; the fifth generation is built alongside the BMW Z4 by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria.
Q 28Which legendary engine family powered the fourth-generation (A80) Supra?
The 2JZ
The twin-turbo 2JZ-GTE made 276 to 321 hp depending on market and became a tuner favourite.
Q 29Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell car, launched in Japan in December 2014, has a name meaning what?
Future
The Mirai was the first mass-produced fuel-cell vehicle sold commercially, with a range of about 312 miles.
Q 30How did Toyota's 2009-2011 recall crisis over unintended acceleration end in the US?
A $1.2 billion criminal payment
President Akio Toyoda testified before a House committee on 24 February 2010.