Toyota Trivia
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This Toyota trivia quiz has 48 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 48 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
Kiichiro Toyoda established Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. on 28 August 1937, spinning the car business out of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, the company his father Sakichi had founded in 1926.
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
Platt Brothers of Oldham, then the world's leading textile-machinery maker, paid £100,000 in 1929 for the rights to Sakichi Toyoda's Type G automatic loom, money that helped fund the family's move into cars.
Q 04What was Toyota's first passenger car, completed in April 1936?
The Model AA
The Model AA, a six-cylinder sedan whose streamlined styling borrowed from the Chrysler Airflow, was completed in April 1936 as the firm's first production passenger car, following the A1 prototype of 1935.
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
Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda shaped the Toyota Production System between 1948 and 1975 around two pillars, just-in-time and jidoka, and it later 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
Kaizen, literally 'change for the better', is Toyota's term for continuous improvement by everyone on the line; kanban are inventory cards, 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
The 5 Whys, asking 'why?' about five times until a fault's root cause appears, was pioneered by Sakichi Toyoda and later became a standard problem-solving tool within the Toyota Production System.
Q 10Since 1997 the best-selling car nameplate of all time has been which Toyota?
Corolla
The Corolla, sold across twelve generations since 1966, overtook the Volkswagen Beetle as the best-selling nameplate and passed 50 million cumulative sales in July 2021.
Q 11The name of Toyota's best-selling compact comes from the Latin for what?
Small crown
The name is Latin for 'small crown', the diminutive of corona; Toyota chose it for the compact it launched in November 1966.
Q 12In which year did the first-generation Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid car, go on sale in Japan?
1997
The first-generation Prius went on sale in Japan in December 1997 as the world's first mass-produced hybrid car; the name is Latin for 'to go before'.
Q 13What is the name of the drivetrain technology that combines engine and electric motor in the Prius?
Hybrid Synergy Drive
Hybrid Synergy Drive, Toyota's name since the 2003 second-generation Prius for its power-split hybrid system, uses a planetary gearset to blend engine and electric-motor output.
Q 21Toyota's 1984 joint-venture plant with General Motors in Fremont, California, was known by which acronym?
NUMMI
NUMMI, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., opened in Fremont in 1984 as a Toyota-General Motors joint venture; its first car, a Chevrolet Nova, was built in December 1984, and the plant closed in 2010.
Q 22Toyota's first wholly owned US plant, opened in 1988, is in which Kentucky town?
Georgetown
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in Georgetown, north of Lexington, was announced in December 1985 and built its first vehicle in May 1988 as the company's first wholly owned American plant.
Q 23Which model was the first car built at Toyota's Burnaston plant in England, in 1992?
Carina E
Q 14Which is Toyota's longest-running model series, in production since 1951?
Land Cruiser
The Land Cruiser began in 1951 as the Toyota BJ, a Jeep-style utility vehicle built to a Korean War-era specification, and passed 10 million cumulative sales in 2019.
Q 15In 2003 Toyota moved Sienna minivan production from Kentucky to a plant in which state?
Indiana
Sienna production moved in 2003 from Kentucky to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana in Princeton, a plant that also began building the Highlander in 2009.
Q 16The name of the Hilux pickup, launched in 1968, is a blend of which two words?
High and luxury
Hilux blends 'high' and 'luxury'; the first generation, a light pickup launched in March 1968, was built for Toyota by the truck maker Hino.
Q 17Which Toyota pickup replaced the Hilux in North America in 1995?
Tacoma
The Tacoma, introduced for the 1995 model year and first built in Fremont, California, replaced the Hilux in North America; the Hilux carried on elsewhere as a favourite of farmers, aid agencies and armies.
Q 18Toyota's luxury brand Lexus launched in the US in 1989 with which flagship sedan?
The LS 400
The LS 400, a V8 flagship developed under the 'F1' (Flagship One) project begun in 1983, launched Lexus in the US alongside the smaller ES 250.
Q 19What was Lexus's original marketing slogan?
The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
'The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection' was the slogan at the brand's launch and ran for over a decade before 'The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection' and, from 2017, 'Experience Amazing'.
Q 20Toyota's youth-oriented North American brand, launched in 2003 and closed in 2016, was called what?
Scion
Scion, launched in California in June 2003 to court younger buyers with boxy models such as the xB, was folded back into Toyota in August 2016.
Burnaston, near Derby, was Toyota's first European car plant; its first vehicle, a Carina E, rolled off the line in December 1992.
Q 24What does the name RAV4 stand for?
Recreational Active Vehicle 4-wheel drive
RAV4 stands for Recreational Active Vehicle 4-wheel drive; the original three-door, built on a car platform rather than a truck frame, is widely credited as the first modern compact crossover.
Q 25Which electric carmaker helped Toyota build the second-generation RAV4 EV in 2012?
Tesla
Tesla supplied the battery pack, motor and power electronics for the second-generation RAV4 EV, sold only in California for three model years under a partnership the two companies announced in 2010.
Q 26The Supra's name comes from a Latin prefix meaning what?
Above or beyond
Supra is Latin for 'above' or 'beyond'; the car began as the Celica Supra in 1978, and the fifth generation, launched in 2019, was assembled alongside the BMW Z4 by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria.
Q 27Which 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 28Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell car, launched in Japan in December 2014, has a name meaning what?
Future
Mirai means 'future' in Japanese; the fuel-cell sedan went on sale in Japan on 15 December 2014, and its first generation carried an EPA-rated range of 312 miles.
Q 29Akio Toyoda, president from 2009 to 2023, races under which pseudonym?
Morizo
Akio Toyoda races and test-drives as Morizo, a pseudonym borrowed from a mascot of the 2005 Aichi Expo; under that name he helped develop the GR Yaris.
Q 30Toyota became the first carmaker to produce more than 10 million vehicles in a single year in which year?
2012
Toyota's group output first passed 10 million vehicles in 2012, roughly 10.1 million including its small-car and truck subsidiaries, a total no carmaker had reached before.