Every once in a while on this board the question about the word Toyoda comes up. I was just assigned a project in my Strategic mangement class on competitive strategy. Low and behold the company we are researching is Toyota. I just finished reading the history of Toyota and thought I would pass my new found knowledge along. Moderators if this is in the wrong place feel free to move. I thought it might belong in Chit Chat but I have seen the Toyoda name here to many times.
The original idea behind the founding of the Toyota Motor Company came from the mind of [color:"blue"]Toyoda Sakichi [/color] whose primary interest was the textile industry. He became intrigued by automobiles in 1910. In 1926 he set up the [color:"blue"] Toyoda Automatic Loom [/color] to manufacture the automatic loom that he created. He sold his patent for the automatic loom to Platt Brothers in 1930 for 1 million Yen.
With this money he urged his son Toyoda Kiichiro to use this money to study the possibility of manufacturing automobiles in Japan. In 1933 Kiichiro was able to get permission to set up an automobile department within [color:"blue"]Toyoda Automatic Loom [/color]. Kiichiro produced 20 vehicles in 1935, 1,142 vehicles (910 trucks, 100 cars, and 132 buses) in 1936.
In 1936 Japan passed a law governing vehicle production and importation. When this law passed, Kodama Risaburo, the VP of Toyods decided the automobile venture wouuld be profitable. In 1937, Risaburo and Kiichiro decided to incorporate the automobile company as a seperate company in order to attract outside investors. Kiichiro Toyoda was appointd president of the new company and named it [color:"green"]Toyota Motor Corporation [/color] the founding family name [color:"blue"] Toyoda [/color], means "abundant rice field" in Japanese, the new name sounded similar to the family name but had no meaning in Japanese to prevent any word association.
Thru a little further research, "Toyoda" on some Toyota parts is because [color:"blue"] Toyoda Automatic Loom [/color] still produces parts for [color:"red"]Toyota [/color]
On a side note,In 1939 the Japanese governemnt prohibited passenger car production and demanded that the company specialize in the production of military trucks. I guess this may be why our Toyota's built 40-65 years later are still built tough.
