Toyota’s beginnings

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33035, 30 September 1972, Page 14

Toyota’s beginnings

An automobile division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd, was established in 1933 by Kiichiro Toyoda, who was carrying out the plans of his father Sakachi Toyoda. It was the ambition of father and son to build better and lower-priced cars in Japan, using their own engineering and manufacturing facilities and techniques. In 1937 Kiichiro Toyoda founded a new company, the Toyota Motor Company, Ltd. It was the dawn of a real Japanese motor industry. By 1968, Toyota executives were able to say: “We have successfully reached our objective of producing better automobiles, trucks and buses in large quantities at reasonable prices, and we believe the extremely rapid growth of our company

proves it. “We do not intend to stand still, but to continue offering our customers better and better products.” Today, Toyota is the world’s third largest motor vehicle manufacturer, and the scope of its product range ensures that almost any buyer preference can be met by one or another of its models. Now well-established in New Zealand the Corolla and Corona continue to be major sellers, and within the next few weeks, the luxury car field will be joined by locally-assembled Crowns, in standard and de luxe form. These promise to be of particular interest to new car buyers, as the New Zealand distributors are quoted as saying that the local units will be built to the “highest Japanese stan-

dards." Anyone familiar with quality control levels apparent from fully built-up Crowns will know how high these standards are. The standard model Crown will feature fourspeed floor gear shift, console, reclining bucket seats, heater and clock, while the de luxe substitutes threespeed Toyoglide T-bar automatic, includes the rest and adds tinted glass, vacuum door locks and power steering. Exterior design is striking, and body work finish on all models is excellent. Motor-cycle, camera and electronic equipment dealers are pushing their Japanese goods to tire front of the display window, and dealers in Toyota cars are also latching on to the demand for the quality Japanese car.