America's Best Car Company

[thetrick]

(FORTUNE Magazine) -- Two Tinny sedans left the port of Yokohama in August 1957, bound for California - the first exports from Toyota. The four-door clunkers flopped. The car, which looked like a brick with a roof on top, was prone to overheating and vibrated at speeds of more than 60 miles per hour. By late 1960, Toyota realized it had made a mistake and pulled the Toyopet Crown off the market.

A less determined company might never have returned after this humiliation. But Toyota (Charts) came back a few years later with a better car and has gone from strength to strength ever since.
The world's most profitable automaker - and soon to be its biggest - now has a 15% market share in the U.S., where it sold 2.5 million cars and trucks last year. Because Toyota is already bigger than Chrysler in the U.S. and is about to pass Ford, Automotive News, the industry bible, has retired the "Big Three" moniker; GM (Charts), Ford (Charts), and Chrysler (Charts) will henceforth be known as the Detroit Three.

Rest of the Article:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...ex.htm?cnn=yes

[69Firebird400]

Wow, that article sounds almost like it was written by Toyota's PR department.

The fact that their first cars were crappy, unreliable tin cans worries me a bit - because that's probably what the first Chinese cars to reach US shores will be, and if they can learn as fast as Toyota did how to meet US consumers' tastes, it's a little scary to think about.

[CRBoyd91]

Somebody is smoking Toyota Kool-Aid laced weed or taking pills. This is the dumbest article I've read in a while. What is its purpose?

[espo19047]

Could not get thru the whole article. This is not what I come to GM inside news to see. I hope this does not make it to the ticker.

[mbukukanyau]

Toyota may be a good company, but its not American..And I can think of tons of American companies that are run better (GM anyone)

[guitarlix]

Originally Posted by CRBoyd91

Somebody is smoking Toyota Kool-Aid laced weed or taking pills. This is the dumbest article I've read in a while. What is its purpose?

What do you mean what is it's purpose? Pick up any Fortune, Forbes or BusinessWeek magazine and you'll see articles like this on a regular basis. Any company that's on top and very successful (like GE, Starbucks, Apple, Toyota, Microsoft etc.) gets featured a lot.

Toyota is now considered to be one of the 10 most admired companies in the world. They're a darling to business investors so expect to read a lot more about them in future issues.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/...fortune/3.html

[morepower]

Wait they build them here? no rising sun.
Dang sell outs fortune must be getting paid off.
Toyota workers in Indiana celebrate the Tundra - and their company's prospects.

[joemac]

If the author of that article isn't on Toyota's payroll, then he should be.

[jon21]

Originally Posted by joemac

If the author of that article isn't on Toyota's payroll, then he should be.

Who know? Toyota might send him a nice gift basket.

[GMCSonoma]

Originally Posted by morepower

Wait they build them here? no rising sun.
Dang sell outs fortune must be getting paid off.
Toyota workers in Indiana celebrate the Tundra - and their company's prospects.

Terrible...simply terrible...

[1931Chevy]

Thats why the Japanese and the Chinese will push the US economy to the dump, because of people like those

[Gixx]

Originally Posted by espo19047

Could not get thru the whole article. This is not what I come to GM inside news to see. I hope this does not make it to the ticker.

I think it is good to see that everyone else thinks.

Even if we think it is a warped sense of the world.

[Warwick44]

Originally Posted by CRBoyd91

Somebody is smoking Toyota Kool-Aid laced weed or taking pills. This is the dumbest article I've read in a while. What is its purpose?

The article just talks about how Toyota went from bringing over crappy cars in 1957 to being the 3rd most admired company in America. It only took 50 years. Seems like a long time.

We wonder how this happened. Like the article states:

But the most important reason that Toyota became America's most prestigious automaker is that this quintessentially Japanese company has been better than Detroit at reading the American car psyche. Toyota has never been a style leader. It has never created a car as iconic as, say, the Ford Mustang. But it discerned correctly that many car buyers don't need the next hot thing. They just want a trouble-free product that looks fine - and they will pay a premium for it.

[morepower]

I wonder what happened to the first little cars that came over, you think they took them back or they rusted away within the year or three. anybody have a picture of one.
Ok I found one 1953 Toyopet
Toyopet Super RHN -1953

__________________
The truck don't look too bad its probably tiny
Toyopet SG - 1953

[Stéphane Dumas]

Originally Posted by Warwick44

But it discerned correctly that many car buyers don't need the next hot thing. They just want a trouble-free product that looks fine - and they will pay a premium for it.

And the premium they pay for it currently, the chances then the current trouble-free product of becoming a collectible like the Mustang are slim. However if the Supra was still made, it had more chances to be collectible compared to the Camry. Then until which point we're going to pay a premium for it? There a limit where we couldn't pass and we have to reconsider, especially when you begin check an eye on a Sonata or even a Malibu and the Aura who can offer a interesting bang for the buck.

And I spotted this French article at http://www4.autonet.ca/FR/Nouvelles/...5/3699201.html and I begin to ponder if some of the employees in various Toyota plants or in the upper management couldn't/wouldn't hold the pressure more longer and might be tempted to follow the recent path then some employees at Renault chosed?