How Toyoda Became Toyota: The Loom Company That Built the World's Largest Automaker
Toyota
Toyota didn't start with engines β it started with looms.
If you drive a Land Cruiser, a Hilux, a 4Runner β anything with that badge on the grille β the company that built it began by making textile machinery in rural Japan. No engines. No chassis. Looms.
Here's how that happened, and how the name on your tailgate came to be spelled the way it is.
The Loom Works
Sakichi Toyoda was an inventor. His Toyoda Automatic Loom Works built power looms good enough that a British firm paid handsomely for the patent rights β and that money became the seed capital for something else entirely.
His son, Kiichiro Toyoda, was the one who looked at automobiles. In 1937 he founded Toyota Motor Co. as a spin-off of his father's textile business.
Japan had almost no domestic auto industry at the time. Kiichiro helped build one largely by studying and reverse-engineering foreign cars and assembly lines β taking them apart, understanding them, and working out how to do it better with fewer resources.
Ten Strokes to Eight
The family name is Toyoda. The company is Toyota. That wasn't a mistake or a translation quirk β it was deliberate.
Written in katakana, γγ¨γ (Toyoda) takes ten strokes. γγ¨γΏ (Toyota) takes eight. In Japan, eight is a lucky number β the character for it, ε «, widens as it descends, suggesting growing prosperity.
There was a practical argument too: Toyota was cleaner to say, visually crisper as a logo, and separated the company from the family name in a way that felt more modern for a business meant to outlive its founders.
The Model AA
Toyota's first production car was the Model AA, developed under Kiichiro's direction. If it looks familiar in photographs, that's because it was heavily inspired by the Chrysler Airflow β the streamlined American sedan that flopped commercially in the States but proved genuinely influential abroad.
Kiichiro brought something else to it: his textile background. Loom manufacturing had taught him to think hard about wasted motion between steps. He applied that thinking to building cars β shortening the distance between operations, cutting idle time, keeping material moving.
That instinct became the foundation of the Toyota Production System, developed through experiments in the 1950s and formalized decades later. Its "Just-in-Time" principle β build what's needed, when it's needed, in the amount needed β reduced waste, lowered cost, improved quality, and gave line workers real ownership of the process.
It's now taught in business schools worldwide. It started with a man thinking about looms.
Where the AA Survives
Almost none are left. Two are worth knowing about.
One car, one replica, and the origin point for a company that now builds over 10 million vehicles a year.
1981 Toyota 4x4 SR5
This one is personal.
The truck was bought new in 1981, and my uncle drove it around wine country in California for decades. He passed away in 2013, and it sat in his garage untouched until 2018, when it came to me.
When I finally got it running properly, it had just 130,000 miles β and the engine needed nothing. That's the part people who haven't owned one of these don't quite believe. Five years parked, and it ran.
I gave it a new interior, repainted it, and redid the racing stripes. The response it got β people stopping me in parking lots, asking about it, wanting one β is genuinely what started the sticker business.
It gets driven on weekends. It still turns heads.
I'm Eric, founder of Toyota Heritage Supply. I've been designing retro Toyota decals since 2019, and we've shipped over 30,000 stickers to more than 100 countries. There's a decent chance you already own one.
With everything moving digital, I wanted to make something nostalgic and tangible β where old meets new. This letter is where I put Toyota stories, history, garage knowledge, and features on the people keeping these trucks alive.
We'll work forward from 1936 to the present, an issue at a time. New to decals? Check our guide to applying vinyl decals without bubbles.
Next Issue: The Truck That Started Everything Β· 1935
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