Photo: screenshot
The Toyota company we know today started its activity back in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works under the direction of the founder’s son, Kiichiro Toyoda. The new automaker’s first cars were the A1 passenger vehicle and the G1 truck, out of which now you can mostly see replicas because there are very few to have survived.
The Toyota Motor Corp separated from its parent company in 1937 after which it began its long and interesting incursion in the automotive industry.
After making a few models to motorize Japan, Toyota proceeded into creating some cheap cars for the American market. It started to export the Crown at first, but because the car was designed to work best in the Country of the Rising Sun, it was too slow and cramped for the American open roads.
This was a lesson for Toyota, so it went back to the drawing board and started to separate domestic models from the ones intended for export. Its cars became bigger, more reliable but still affordable, managing to sell more and more.
Nowadays, with dozens of models and subsidiaries in every part of the Globe, Toyota managed to climb in top position, but the biggest achievement so far for the company is the introduction of the hybrid ideology and making it spread. This happened in 1997, when the company started to mass produce the first generation Toyota Prius - a not too nice to look at sedan, but with an impressive mileage for the time. People were skeptical at first, but the electrically-aided gasoline engine is now a concept as common as fitting a car with an LPG system. So far, Toyota managed to sell over 6 million hybrid vehicles worldwide.
But what’s written here is only a small part of Toyota’s work. It’s lineup of vehicles from the beginning until now is immense and if you’re curious about it, the automaker recently launched a new interactive app for Internet browsers where you can see each of its models and find details about each one of them. So, why not giving it a try right here?
After making a few models to motorize Japan, Toyota proceeded into creating some cheap cars for the American market. It started to export the Crown at first, but because the car was designed to work best in the Country of the Rising Sun, it was too slow and cramped for the American open roads.
Nowadays, with dozens of models and subsidiaries in every part of the Globe, Toyota managed to climb in top position, but the biggest achievement so far for the company is the introduction of the hybrid ideology and making it spread. This happened in 1997, when the company started to mass produce the first generation Toyota Prius - a not too nice to look at sedan, but with an impressive mileage for the time. People were skeptical at first, but the electrically-aided gasoline engine is now a concept as common as fitting a car with an LPG system. So far, Toyota managed to sell over 6 million hybrid vehicles worldwide.
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