Brief history of Toyota Motor Co. and museum

Hi TW,

I had the opportunity of taking a trip to Japan, great noodles, ancient temples, kind people but there were was one place in particular I wanted to visit: the first and original Toyota factory in Japan (now called the Kaikan museum).


This is the factory where it all began and is now a dedicated museum to the history of Toyota Motor Company as well as the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. I'm back to share with you some pictures that I personally took and a little piece of history which is deeply embedded here in TW that few of us realize.
Let's begin!

Toyota Motor Co. started as a textiles company in 1911 by Sakichi Toyoda (that's right, TO-YO-DA) who established the Toyoda automatic weaving mill in Sako, Nagoya. His factory performed research and development of automatic looms for the weaving of textiles.



In the 1920's, Sakichi contributed to many developments of the automatic loom machines leading to the development of the Type G automatic loom machine in 1924 which came to be regarded as the highest performing automatic loom machine at that time. Sakichi established Toyota Automatic loom works for the mass production of his loom machines becoming the nucleus for the growth of a future company which his son, Kiichiro Toyoda will develop.

Kiichiro was raised in an industrial environment providing him access for study, research and development in the automatic loom machines, however he developed a keen interest in automobiles. In a small room on a corner of his father's loom factory he began tinkering with a Smith Flyer vehicle, a small, simple two seat vehicle with a wooden frame. He was able to provide a kit that would attach a Smith Flyer wheel and motor onto an ordinary bicycle.



His next project was an ambitions one, the automobile. So how do you figure out how an automobile works in 1920's?
Simple!
You start by taking apart and studying an American Chevrolet car.
In a corner of of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, preparations began to build prototype vehicles while recruiting people with relevant experience from outside the company.



The production of Toyota's automobiles started in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works and by 1935 they had finally achieved their first production car, the A1 (or AA in Japan).










Personal note:
This vehicle is gorgeous!
It's a mechanical masterpiece, the first step forward for the automotive industry in Japan.

After the completion of the Model AA, Kiichiro turned it's attention to building a truck vehicle because it was more likely to be profitable in the short term, thus the first ever Toyota truck was born: the G1.





Alright so what's the deal with the name?
What's with TOYODA?
Isn't it TOYOTA?

In September 1936 the company ran a public competition to design a new logo for their line of vehicles, of 27,000 entries the end result was a combination of three Japanese letters spelling the word TOYOTA.

I personally happen to study basic Japanese language so I will attempt to uncover this mystery. Unlike our English alphabet which consists of 26 letters, Japanese writing has two forms of alphabets called Hiragana and Katakana. There's a third form of writing called Kanji but let's focus on Katakana for now

The Japanese letter for "TO" is written as "ト"
The Japanese letter for "YO" is written as "ヨ"
The Japanese letter for "DA" is written as "ダ"

The word TOYODA would've been seen as トヨダ
Notice the two lines at the top of ダ.

The decision to change the name to TOYOTA was because:

*In Japanese writing it takes eight brush strokes (a lucky number, Japanese culture).
*It was visually simpler.
*It was simpler to pronounce.

Thus the name "Toyota" (トヨタ) with the two lines removed from ダ was established in August 1937 as the Toyota Motor Company. Personally after reading about the new logo for Toyota it inspired me to make the TEQ emblem after coming back from Japan.



The second truck in production, the Model GA was the first vehicle sold under the new name of Toyota.

Fun fact: from September 1947 small size vehicles were sold under the name "Toyopet" (トヨペット) and was given the nick name after the SA model for it's small size as a result of another naming contest.


From this group of small size vehicles came other models including the Toyopet Corona, however after the introduction of these vehicles into American sales the name was drooped due to associations with toys and pets. From these smaller size vehicles came our famous Corolla, Camry, Celica and others.





The rest of the museum offers a good amount of information about the fabrication of these vehicles, testing, forging etc. There were lots of Japanese and foreign college students visiting the museum





Fun fact: In my early years of manufacturing I used to operate a 2-story high CNC machine labeled TOYODA. I'm not sure if the brand is a direct product of the Toyota motor company but I do know it started in 1941 originally made to facilitate the production lines of major automotive companies including Toyota Motor Co.







Toyota Motor Co. has prospered and is now one of the finest example of lean manufacturing over the world. They also continue to make a variety of products such as this advanced loom machine shown below that can dye each thread a different color to produce a photo on the fabric.



Our tour ended with a special duet playing instruments live.

I hope you enjoy.

-Andres

Museum locations:
Toyota Kaikan Museum

 

Very cool!

 

Cool stuff. Thanks

 

Yeah, the museum was awesome!

 

Amazing. Thanks for sharing!

 

You're very welcome!

 

Wow, thanks for taking the time to post this!

 

Very cool, great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

So when is the diesel tundra coming out

Haha just joking. That was a cool post. I bet it was awesome to see in person.

 

AWESOME post

 

Awesome, thanks!

 

Thanks for sharing. Great Fun Facts !!!

 

DOPE!!!

 

You're very welcome.
Took a while to get everything together but it was all worth it.

 

Yes, it was an unforgettable experience.

 

Thanks

 

Very cool man. I love Japan! My wife and I try to visit there at least once a year. We've been to Okinawa, Sapporo, Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka. Nagoya is next on the list and will try to make it out to Kaikan.

 

Fantastic. Thanks for sharing man

 

Haha, I wish I knew what Toyota has planned
I did get to visit their assembly line but unfortunately no pictures allowed.

 

That's awesome, do you have relatives there?
My wife and I visited for a month and we visited Sapporo, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and other small places.
The furthest south we went was Yakushima for a 2 day hike thru their amazing forest.

 

That’s fascinating. I have a friend just move back to US from Okinawa.

 

That brought back memories of when I was stationed in Yokosuka Japan. I had a 1982 Toyota Corona that I bought for about $400 on base. The car was inexpensive but the JCI (Japanese Compulsory Insurance) nearly broke me. I remember that thing had a bell that would ding when you exceeded 105kph (55mph) and it drove me nuts on the Yoko-Yoko road between Yokosuka and Yokohama, with no speed limit.

 

That's one place I wish I visited

 

no, we just love the country. . . . . people and food and environment.

We're here on Guam. So Japan is only 4.5 hrs away by plane.

 

Understood,

Wife and I take a 1 month long vacation every year.
Mostly it's been to different parts of Europe but couldn't resist to visit Japan this time.

 

Fantastic! From the pictures the museum itself appears to be a work of art.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing

 

You're welcome

 

Nice and thanks for sharing.

 

Very cool stuff.