Photo: Toyota
In the years that preceded the start of the Second World War, the then still largely secluded Japan was about to venture on the path of carmaking for the civilian market. Just four years before the Japanese launched their deadly attack on Pearl Harbor, the country gave birth to a name that's very present in our lives still: Toyota.
The carmaking company as we know it today was founded as Toyota Jidosha kabushikigaisha by local businessman Kiichiro Toyoda. It was an offshoot of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works (later known as Toyota Industries), born eleven years earlier to make other kinds of machines – looms, mostly.
Driving the need to create a carmaker in Toyoda's name was a truck called Model G1, which was assembled by Loom Works in August 1935. It wasn't such a big hit – just 379 of them were ever made – but the company's higher-ups saw a lot of potential in four-wheeled vehicles for human and cargo transport, so a decision was made to dive head-on into this segment.
And, by the looks of it, it was the right decision to make. 88 years and two months have passed since the production of that first truck, and the Japanese are celebrating a milestone that, to my knowledge, only the Americans from Ford have managed to reach.
For years now Toyota has been at the top of the global vehicle sales chart, constantly topping ten million units over a 12-month period. That incredible performance allowed the carmaker to officially pass over the threshold of 300 million cars produced in its history.
The achievement was made public on Monday, November 6, 2023, after the numbers for the month of September 2023 had been punched in.
To put things into perspective, the huge number translates into Toyota producing an average of 3.4 million cars in each year of its exsitence. It's also the equivalent of a vehicle for every living citizen of Indonesia and Taiwan combined.
If that's still difficult to comprehend, how about this: the average distance from Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles (150 million km). The number of cars Toyota made over the years means you could park three of them on every mile of that distance!
As per the numbers provided by the Japanese, domestic production accounted over the years for 180.52 million cars of the total, with 119.6 million made abroad. The most produced model in Toyota's portfolio ever is the Corolla.
The hit model, which has been in production since 1966, was responsible for 53.399 million of the total. That may not seem that much given the 57 years that have passed since, but do consider the number represents almost 18 percent of the vehicles Toyota made ever.
Driving the need to create a carmaker in Toyoda's name was a truck called Model G1, which was assembled by Loom Works in August 1935. It wasn't such a big hit – just 379 of them were ever made – but the company's higher-ups saw a lot of potential in four-wheeled vehicles for human and cargo transport, so a decision was made to dive head-on into this segment.
And, by the looks of it, it was the right decision to make. 88 years and two months have passed since the production of that first truck, and the Japanese are celebrating a milestone that, to my knowledge, only the Americans from Ford have managed to reach.
For years now Toyota has been at the top of the global vehicle sales chart, constantly topping ten million units over a 12-month period. That incredible performance allowed the carmaker to officially pass over the threshold of 300 million cars produced in its history.
The achievement was made public on Monday, November 6, 2023, after the numbers for the month of September 2023 had been punched in.
To put things into perspective, the huge number translates into Toyota producing an average of 3.4 million cars in each year of its exsitence. It's also the equivalent of a vehicle for every living citizen of Indonesia and Taiwan combined.
If that's still difficult to comprehend, how about this: the average distance from Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles (150 million km). The number of cars Toyota made over the years means you could park three of them on every mile of that distance!
As per the numbers provided by the Japanese, domestic production accounted over the years for 180.52 million cars of the total, with 119.6 million made abroad. The most produced model in Toyota's portfolio ever is the Corolla.
The hit model, which has been in production since 1966, was responsible for 53.399 million of the total. That may not seem that much given the 57 years that have passed since, but do consider the number represents almost 18 percent of the vehicles Toyota made ever.
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