To hear Chairman Akio Toyoda tell it, the year 1925 was just as special for the Japanese juggernaut Toyota Motor Corp. as it was for Automotive News. The world’s biggest automaker wasn’t even in the car business at the time. But that year, the namesake company founded by Toyoda’s forefathers changed the course of history by starting mass production of its breakthrough Type G automatic loom.
The product’s runaway success kicked off one of the world’s most successful corporate dynasties and cemented the Toyoda lineage’s legacy in the annals of all-time industrial greats.
It was also the year this Detroit publication was founded. And as Automotive News looks back 100 years, it salutes Akio Toyoda and his family, stretching back four generations, with a Centennial Award for distinguished achievement and service over the years.
“We can say 1925 was a special year not just for Automotive News, but also for Toyota Motor. It was a very significant year, and probably a game-changer year,” Toyoda says, noting that his father, Shoichiro Toyoda, a longtime president and chairman, was also born in 1925.
Revenue from the Type G created the solid financial foundation for branching into the then-nascent world of autos. And its impact is so consequential, Toyota proudly displays a restored loom in the lobby of its Tokyo executive suite, next to a replica of the company’s first car, the Model AA.
“Mass production for this very loom began in 1925,” Toyoda said, gesturing to the machine. “In the U.S. at that time, cars were already popular and there were about 3 million cars produced in the U.S. and running on the roads. But Toyota the car company didn’t even exist yet.”
The sprawling industrial dynasty didn’t just turbocharge Japan on its path to economic riches. Its most famous progeny, Toyota Motor Corp., changed the face of the global auto industry.
Reflecting on the remarkable journey, Toyoda, in a March 25 sit down for the Centennial Award, traced the original spark to his great-grandfather Sakichi Toyoda.
