Toyota

Well, it finally happened. This week, Toyota officially became the world's largest auto manufacturer with 2008 car and truck sales of 8.97 million besting GM's paltry 8.35 million units sold.

Most people consider Toyota to have surpassed GM last year when they produced the most vehicles in the world, but Detroit denial stipulated that the sales crown was more important. And now that crown rests upon the brow of a beige Corolla with one missing hubcap.

More bad news for GM then as their whopping 77 years of market domination comes to an end, but perhaps its better to see things in a more optimistic light and cheer Toyota for their success. Maybe if we're really nice to them, they'll bring back the Supra.

Toyota sprang into being in the mid-thirties as an offshoot of a manufacturer of automatic looms. Kiichiro Toyoda was the enterprising son who had been sent to America and Europe to examine automotive production there, and he brought home what he learned to a Japan hungry for domestic car production. Early models were sold as Toyodas and were so similar to Dodge and Chevy products that some parts were actually interchangeable.

The Toyota company was given its name largely as the result of superstition. The homonym “Toyota” requires eight brush strokes to write in Japanese, which is both lucky and visually simpler than the symbols for “Toyoda”. Additionally, the literal translation of Toyoda is “fertile rice paddies,” and the modern company was eager to distance themselves from old-fashioned farming, especially when you think about what fertilizes rice paddies.

Early small cars from the Toyota motor company were sold under the name “Toyopet,” which didn't go over very well when they went on sale in the U.S. in 1957. The name was changed back to Toyota for export models, and in what may have been foreshadowing, the first model to show up on North American roads was the Toyota Crown.

You can still buy a Toyota Crown today, as it's roughly equivalent to a Lexus E350. You couldn't buy one by 1960 though because the car was a major failure. Its puny four-cylinder engine was no match for its truck-based frame on the interstate highways of the United States, and on a publicity stunt coast-to-coast trip, it barely made it from L.A. to Las Vegas. Toyota pulled the car from the export lineup, leaving only the jeep-like Land Cruiser and the Tiara, which initially sold 318 units and was considered a runaway success. Eventually the Crown was re-launched in the mid-sixties with a six-cylinder engine and the Tiara (which soon changed to Corona) began doubling its sales every year.

Really though, all that sales figures stuff is incredibly boring. The moment anyone actually started caring about Toyota was the moment they saw Akkiko Wakabayashi roll up in a white Toyota 2000 GT open-top to help James Bond escape from the bad guys. Yes, You Only Live Twice was a pretty silly movie, and yes, Sean Connery's Japanese disguise was pretty laughable (“domo arrrigato, Mishter Rrroboto”), but the swooping Jaguar E-type lines and Porche 911 performance of the 2000 GT made everybody sit up and pay attention. That was a Toyota?

Proving they could build an interesting car helped Toyota's sales, but it was the '73 oil crisis that really kicked down the doors for Japanese companies and their small, fuel-efficient vehicles. By the early 80's there were Toyota badges everywhere, particularly the Corolla, which would go on to be the best selling car nameplate in the world.

For me, the 80's are really the time where Toyota's trucks came into their own with the nigh-indestructible Hilux (or Tacoma) and Land Cruiser. If only groups like the Taliban were forced to drive around in trucks produced by Fiat or Alfa-Romeo, all the hotspots of the world would be a lot quieter, as they'd spend most of their time either walking or pushing. With a Toyota pickup truck though, they can go pretty much anywhere, and it'll run pretty much forever even without maintenance.

In 1989 Toyota pulled another trick out of their bag: they introduced Lexus. The LS400 flagship was launched after years of prototypes and customer focus groups, and it was a smooth-riding success. BMW and Mercedes sneered at the idea of a Japanese luxury car, dismissing it as nothing more than a fancy Camry, and suggesting that no Toyota product would ever be a threat to the high-end German marques. Look how well that prediction worked out.

By the 90's things were in full swing with the outrageous twin-turbo Supra, the pocket-rocket Celica GTS and the if-it-were-any-slower-it'd-be-a-Ferrari Turbo MR2. All fun to drive, but the most interesting vehicle Toyota launched wasn't. In 1997, Japanese roads were introduced to the bulbous, slow, and incredibly important Prius Hybrid.

Toyota has championed its Hybrid-Synergy drive over the last decade, making it available in everything from the SUV Toyota Highlander to their flagship sedan Lexus LS600h. In typical Toyota fashion, it spent millions on research even before the market existed for the vehicles it was intending to build.

Toyota now comprises three companies: Lexus, Toyota, and the “Youth” brand Scion. It also has its tentacles in Subaru, Yamaha and Isuzu. But even with its huge resources, great management and high sales volume, Toyota is still slowing or stopping production. They've killed the idea of bringing back the Supra, and a new Lexus supercar which was in the works also faces the axe.

Whether or not they retain their crown, it'd be nice to borrow Toyota's crystal ball for a while and see what they think the future has in store for us. Hopefully it's not just another shade of beige for that Corolla.