10 Fun, Interesting and Amazing Toyota Facts

Raise your hand if you drive a Toyota! Did you do it? If you did, good for you for following directions even though nobody is around to hold you accountable. If you didn’t raise your hand and you do drive a Toyota, that’s OK, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of these quality Japanese automobiles, they work hard to get you from place to place! To help you better appreciate your vehicle, now I let you know some interesting and amazing Toyota facts.

  • Toyota Motor Corporation started in 1937 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. While the Toyota Group is now best known for its cars, they are still in the textile business as well.

  • The founder of Toyota Motor Corporation actually spells his name T-O-Y-O-D-A. Kiichiro Toyoda, to be exact. The spelling of the company name was changed to Toyota because when it is written in Katakana (a Japanese script) it only takes 8 strokes to write, and 8 is a lucky number in East Asian culture.

  • Kiichiro Toyoda, son of the founder of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, got ideas for the first Toyota cars from the United States. He traveled to the US in 1929 to investigate automobile production because Japan needed to start producing domestic vehicles due to their war with China. Early Toyota’s bear a striking resemblance to the Dodge Power Wagon and Chevrolet.

  • Even though Toyota started in Japan, the company has created more than 365,000 jobs in the United States.

  • The Korean War saved Toyota. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and produced only 300 trucks in June of 1950. In the first few months of the Korean War, the US ordered more than 5,000 vehicles from Toyota, and the company was revived.

  • Toyota first came to America in 1957.

  • In the year 2011, Toyota was ranked as the third largest car manufacturer in the world, behind General Motors and Volkswagen Group.

  • Toyota is the world’s leading manufacturer of hybrid vehicles, and there are more than 1,700,000 Toyota hybrids on the road right now.

  • Toyota invests $1 million dollars every hour in research and development worldwide. They do this in pursuit of building better and safe cars.

  • Eighty percent of Toyotas sold 20 years ago are still on the road today!

    • There you go! Some fun, interesting and amazing facts about Toyota vehicles for you to share with your friends and family.