Toyota Logo

Want to know more about the Toyota brand? Well this is your one-stop guide to discovering whatever you need to know about this famous Japanese car manufacturer and their history. Often shortened to TMC, the Toyota Motor Corporation specialises in creating cars as well as diversifying into the realms of robotics and biotechnology. It started life in 1937 when Kiichiro Toyoda created a new branch within his father's business, Toyota Industries after creating the Type A engine. Its first passenger car was the Toyota AA, part of the A1 passenger cars. Toyota Motor Co. was officially established as a company in its own right in 1937, despite manufacturing of the prototypes commencing as early as 1933.

It became a part of the commercial car market with the Model AA designs and began developing itself as a brand. A competition to re-brand the company led it to change 'Toyoda' to 'Toyota' with its new name deemed to be good luck. It has had the 'T' in three ovals as its logo since 1989.

Toyota continued to manufacture cars for the consumer market and in 1982 the Toyota Motor company and Toyota Motor Sales merged into the Toyota Motor Corporation. They went on to form the companies Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino Motors as separate companies. Their headquarters were moved to Toyota City, Aichi and Tokyo. The company then created a Financial Services division which takes care of its robotics research.

Unfortunately Toyota cars fared badly in the global recession as one of the worst affected car manufacturers, recording a loss of $4.2 billion during the credit crunch. However, it maintains 540 consolidated subsidiaries across the world and has been internationally traded on the stock exchange since 1999.