Cars We Remember / Collector Car Corner; Toyota history, the Deming influence and why I would buy a Toyota

Q: Greg, of all the cars you’ve test driven, which car would be the first you personally would buy and why? We read your column every week and really enjoy the nostalgia columns so much. We currently own a 2008 Saab and enjoy your columns in The Daily Review. Thanks much, Glenn and Marie, near Camptown, Pa. 

A: Glenn and Marie, I’m finally going to answer the question that I’ve been asked thousands of times over the course of my test driving days and the fact that I’ve driven close to 1,600 cars since 1994. (By the way readers, Glenn and Marie live close by to Camptown, Pa., known nationally as the home of the song, Camptown Races.)

Right now, if I were to buy a car or truck, I’d probably try to find a used, off-lease or low mileage, Toyota. Be it a Camry, Highlander or Tundra, the latter pickup built in North America and only for the North American market, the odds of getting a great vehicle are high.  

Over the years, Toyota has been a staple of owner satisfaction, which to me is the most important aspect of owning a vehicle. I’ve been a loyal subscriber of Consumer Reports for over 40 years, and look forward yearly to their owner satisfaction special issues/booklets. Granted, other manufacturers have produced fine cars, but when I add everything up, it’s always Toyota that has the most impressive ownership satisfaction records.

So, here’s some interesting info on Toyota, going all the way back to its formation and company founder Sakichi Toyoda (not Toyota). The reason the Toyota name exists instead of family name Toyoda is because Toyo with “da” means “rice paddy” while Toyo with “ta” means nothing but takes just eight brush strokes as eight is a lucky number in Japan. 

Born into a small, family owned textile business that has now grown into the largest car manufacturer in the world, Sakichi was born in 1867 and by his teen years was a respected carpenter / weaver fascinated with fabric weaving machines. Sakichi invented a multi-weaving fabric machine with an automatic power loom that also shut the machine down automatically if there was a crimp. Thus, Sakichi became Japan’s father of the industrial revolution although not yet involved in auto manufacturing.  We’re talking the 1920s here, well before any Toyota hit the highways. Sadly, Sakichi passed away in 1930 at the age of just 63. 

Important to this feature is the fact that both Ford and General Motors had factories in Japan. Their vehicles were imported from America in kit form and assembled by the local workforce. The Ford Yokohama facility started in March 1925 and GM built a factory at Osaka starting in April 1927. By 1929, both Ford and GM controlled most of the Japanese automobile market, producing 28,000 vehicles in 1929.

During development of Toyota’s first car, called the Toyota AA, the family purchased the GM and Ford products and did what Japan was best known for, specifically reverse engineering (copycat). They also hired away the engineers that worked at the Japanese Ford and GM factories.

Keeping with the family history, Sakichi’s son, Kiichiro is next on the family timeline and also responsible for Toyota’s growth. During the 1929 depression at age 35, Kiichiro flew to Detroit and visited all the auto companies prior to starting to build cars and trucks in Japan.

This reality combined with the family industrial talent led to Kiichiro founding what would be known today as Toyota.

Kiichiro formed his auto manufacturing division in the loom factory in 1933. The initial Toyota design was copied from a 1934 DeSoto, which Kiichiro favored from his visit to the states. He used the Chevrolet 6-cylinder engine while most of the electronics came from Ford. In 1935, the first car was finished and featured 62-horsepower and a 3-speed manual transmission with room for 5-passengers. The car cost 3300 yen. The family then opened a research and development (R&D) factory in May1936 and the copy technique was shelved in favor of actual Toyota-brand manufacturing.

Next were trucks, and Kiichiro built them with warranties that included replacing the entire truck if things went bad. By the early 1940s, the family was selling cars and trucks and doing quite well. With the arrival of WWII, and following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Toyota stopped car and truck production to produce only trucks for the war effort. Luckily, after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing, the war ended before Tokyo and the Toyota factory was hit.

Finally in 1947, Toyota produced its first post-war car, the Toyopet SA. However, the war took a massive toll on all of Japan’s businesses, and Toyota was facing bankruptcy. In 1950, Toyota’s total truck production was just 300. Toyota had to layoff many employees and the union went on strike for 60-days. The union demands included Kiichiro stepping down as president, which he did in June of 1950. Taizo Ishida, who was the chief executive of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Company, took over.

Unfortunately for many, June of 1950 is the same month the Korean War started and the U.S. stepped right up and ordered 5,000 cars and trucks from Toyota. This order not only saved the entire Toyota Company, it led the union a few years later to vote to reinstate Kiichiro as president. Everything was ready for Kiichiro’s reinstatement for July of 1952 at age 57, but sadly he suddenly died in March at just 57 years old. The entire country was stunned. Also in 1950 a separate sales company, Toyota Motor Sales Co., was established and lasted until July 1982. In April 1956, the Toyopet dealer chain was established, and in 1957 a 1958 Toyopet Crown became the first Japanese car to be exported to the United States.

Today, Toyota is still in the loom business (computerized loom machines) and also big in sewing machines, too.

However, here’s where Dr. W. (William) Edwards Deming enters the picture and gives insight as to why Toyota’s build quality is the best. According to the Deming Institute’s main page, Iowa-born Deming was an eminent scholar and teacher in American academia for more than half a century. He published hundreds of original papers, articles and books covering a wide range of interrelated subjects – from statistical variance, to systems and systems thinking, to human psychology.

Deming was a consultant to business leaders, major corporations, and governments around the world. His efforts lead to the transformation of management that has profoundly impacted manufacturing and service organizations around the world.

Considered by many to be the master of continual improvement of quality, as well as their overall operation, Deming is best known for his pioneering work in Japan.

Beginning in the summer of 1950, when Toyota was struggling to stay alive, he taught top managers and engineers the methods for improving how they worked and learned together. His focus was both internal, between departments, and external, with suppliers and customers. As a trusted consultant, Deming significantly contributed to the dramatic turnaround of post-war Japanese industry, and their rise to a world economic power. 

Dr. Deming’s role as the architect of Japan’s post-World War II industrial transformation is regarded by many Western business schools and economists as one of the most significant achievements of the 20th century. (LA Times, 10/25/99.) He is often called the “father of the third wave of the industrial revolution.”   

Unfortunately, he was shown the door by our United States auto manufacturers; something to this day was clearly a mistake. Finally, in June of 1980 when the car industry needed him most, the acclaimed documentary, “If Japan can, why can’t we,” reintroduced Dr. Deming to America. He quickly became the voice of quality and sparked the quality revolution. Playing a major role in the resurgence of the American automobile industry in the late 1980’s, Dr. Deming consulted with corporations such as Ford, Toyota, Xerox, Ricoh, Sony and Procter & Gamble, whose businesses were revitalized after adopting his management methods.

Deming, who earned a PhD from Yale, is remembered as a respected visionary, whose belief in continual improvement led to a set of transformational theories and teachings that changed the way we think about quality, management, and leadership. Toyota was awarded The Deming Application Prize for quality control in 1965, proving that Deming’s quality control was top of mind in all Toyota vehicles built from 1960 forward. Deming’s award is certified and awarded annually by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).

Dr. Deming continued to author and lecture well into his 90’s. His final book, “The New Economics,” was published after his passing in 1993 at the age of 93. It was the culmination of his life’s work, detailing “The Deming System of Profound Knowledge.”

Although I must stop here because of word count, I hope you enjoyed this bit of Toyota history and Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s influence. I thank Glenn and Marie for their kind words and also thank Toyota and The Deming Institute for supplying me with much of the needed history for this feature. (See deming.org for more.)

(Greg Zyla is a syndicated columnist who welcomes input or questions on collector cars, auto nostalgia and motorsports at greg@gregzyla.com.)