The manufacturer whose mid-engined MR2 was once a sharper drive than Mazda's Miata now has not a single product that could truly be described as the enthusiast's choice. That said, the Camry continues to be the best-selling trunked conveyance in the United States.

In general, Toyota does not create iconic vehicles, and rarely offers the latest in style; design, or technology. Rather, the Toyota recipe is the continuous improvement (kaizen) of innovations one might vaguely remember having seen introduced by companies without the persistence, or the deep pockets, to develop them.

Writes one poster on The Car Lounge forums, "as far as I can tell, ever since the MR2 and Celica went dodo, Toyota has been completely run by efficiency software... it's like the Camry and Corolla became self-aware and took the whole business over." Adds another, "the Camry has but one purpose in life: to keep people who do not care about cars, out of cars people care about."

As former Nissan racer; NSX development driver, and Nurburging legend Motoharu "Gan-san" Kurosawa reckons, "Toyota are good at making money, but they're no good at making sports cars."


Toyota has become a master of feeding the public new - if derivative - styling and interior features, while retaining the more inherent, mechanical aspects of a design, year after year, and generation after generation. The strategy plays well in a culture which equates the latest with the greatest, provided that the latest is easily identifiable, and that it is not too new.

En masse, it seems, we want new, with a comfortable link to the past - not Citroen's brilliant past of hydraulic systems that have offered unparalleled at-the-wheel control of spring and damping, but Toyota's past of reliable, easily comprehensible transportation.


Toyota's green status is increasingly questionable, what with the LS600hL attaining worse fuel economy than the non-hybrid LS430 V8, and with Toyota taking the two-wheel-drive hybrid Highlander off the market in 2007, leaving only an all-wheel-drive version which costs more and gets worse economy.

Toyota is also against imposing speed limits on the autobahn. Planning to launch the LF-A supercar through its sub-brand Lexus, Toyota argues that restrictions would do little to reduce CO₂ (Autocar, November 28^th, 2007).

As Toyota finds itself lobbying together with the Big Three against the toughest fuel-economy measures before Congress in mid 2007, the company attracts the ire of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (who has generally been supportive of the company, to the point of suggesting that it should buy General Motors to save the environment).

There is no doubt that the Senate proposal before Congress - to force automakers to raise fleetwide gas mileage by 40% to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 - would be hard to meet, even for Toyota, who spends more than any other automaker on research and development ($23 million per day, as of 2007). Attempting compliance might well cost the domestic automakers alone $85 billion, to say nothing of costs passed on to the consumer in the form of higher MSRPs.

Yet Friedman's attack of Toyota takes the company and the media by surprise, as he has previously suggested that America would be better off if Toyota were to purchase General Motors.

Toyota's cross-town competitor, Honda, has not suffered from the same diatribes by environmentalists. Honda genuinely considers fuel efficiency in every segment; through 2007, the company has never built a production V8 engine, and even when entering the pickup truck segment with the Ridgeline, chose unibody construction and V6 power to reduce weight (not to mention cost).

Honda also has no issue with being resolutely Japanese, while Toyota often seems convinced that it must act as American as possible in order to head off a possible xenophobic backlash.

"Advertising that promotes Toyota as an American company rings false," notes analyst Christine Tierney for The Detroit News.

"Toyota has a big presence in the United States, where it has invested nearly $16 billion.

"But it is a company based in the Japanese heartland of Chubu, not what most people would consider an American corporation" ('Mixed signals trip up Toyota,' Christine Tierney, The Detroit News, October 5^th, 2007).

In a reference to Toyota's usurping of the sales and production mantle from General Motors in 2007, Tierney cautions, "now that Toyota has risen to No.1, the company needs to define itself more clearly - or be defined by others" ('Mixed signals trip up Toyota,' Christine Tierney, The Detroit News, October 5^th, 2007).


Toyota has been rapidly expanding while maintaining relatively short product cycles, a surefire recipe for cut corners.

Apparently, even Consumer Reports' subscribers have begun noticing issues with their Toyotas. Writes the magazine on October 16^th, 2007, "after years of sterling reliability, Toyota is showing cracks in its armor, according to data from Consumer Reports' 2007 Annual Car Reliability Survey.

"By contrast, Ford's domestic brands have made considerable improvements.

"The V6 version of the company's top-selling Camry, and the four-wheel-drive V8 version of the Tundra pickup, both redesigned for 2007, now rate below average in Consumer Reports' predicted reliability rating. (This rating does not apply to previous model years.) In addition, the all-wheel-drive version of the Lexus GS sedan also received a below average rating."

Most importantly, "CR will no longer recommend any new or redesigned Toyota-built models without reliability data on a specific design.

"Previously, new and redesigned Toyota models were recommended because of the automaker's excellent track record, even if CR didn't have sufficient reliability data on the new model."

"Honda is actually further ahead than Toyota in terms of environmental technology," estimates Jeffrey Scharf of Scharf investments, though conceding, "I think Toyota has a better environmental image" (The Detroit News, March 9^th, 2007).

The visibility of the hybrid-only Toyota Prius is largely responsible. In 2007, the Prius accounts for less than 5% of Toyota's sales in the United States, yet shades the company's gas-guzzling Tundra for media coverage.

In April 2008, roughly a decade after the first Prius left lines in Japan, the millionth is sold. In 2008, Toyota will sell 450,000 hybrids globally. "Sometime during the decade beginning with 2010, we plan to sell a million hybrid vehicles annually," confirms Irv Miller, Group Vice President for Corporate Communications at Toyota Motor Sales USA.

It has been said that Prius is to hybrids what Apple's iPod is to MP3 players. Thus it comes as no surprise when, in mid 2007, Toyota is reported to be considering spinning off Prius as a separate, hybrid sub-brand.

Toyota is said to be planning a line-up of three hybrids, all named Prius, to be launched in 2009:

• Prius A (Yaris sized)


• Prius B (based on the 2007/8 Corolla, and a replacement for the 2004-2009 Prius)


• Prius C (based on the 2011 Camry, and a replacement for the Camry hybrid)

In June 2008, Toyota's Open Road corporate blog publishes the story of Kenny, 13, a boy described to be so "nutty about Hybrid Synergy Drive" that he has "Prius images on his computer; as his standing wallpaper, and as the wallpaper on his cell phone.

"Kenny's letter tells us that when he's out for a drive with his parents, he counts Priuses because 'I try to see how many people actually care about this earth.'

"Many of us who grew up in America's car culture were infatuated with '40s Fords powered by big American V8s; by '55 Chevys, and by GTOs and Camaros from the Muscle Car era.

"But times have changed" (http://blog.toyota.com/2008/06/auto-enthusiasm.html).

Laying it on a little thick? That probably explains why, going by the sparse number of comments, the Open Road blog receives a fraction of the attention of General Motors' Fastlane Blog, or even of the first of the breed, Zastava-Info.


Toyota in 2007 becomes the first foreign brand to compete in NASCAR since MG and Jaguar in the 1950s. The decision to race is timed with the launch of the 2008 Tundra pickup truck, which competes in a traditionally domestic segment known for its brand loyalty.


Toyota spends 59.1 million euros ($80.4 million) on advertising in Germany in the first quarter of 2007: $2,352 per vehicle, almost double for the same period of 2006. By comparison. Volkswagen spends 379 euros per vehicle ($515).


Toyota's VVT-i variable-valve timing, unlike BMW's Valvetronic; Honda's VTEC/ i-VTEC, and Nissan's system, does not adjust lift. Late in 2007, Toyota enhances its VVT-i variable-valve timing system with Valvematic, Toyota's second attempt to vary lift (the first debuted in the Celica GT-S' Yamaha-supplied 1.8-liter VVTL-I).

Valvematic manipulates the intake-valve lift volume, adjusting the level of sacrificial oxygen molecules to increase both performance and fuel efficiency by up to 10%. The first application is employed in a new 2-liter engine.


According to Toyota, the two perpendicular center ovals of its logo represent "a relationship of mutual trust between the customer and Toyota.

"These ovals combine to symbolize the letter T for Toyota.

"The space in the background implies a global expansion of Toyota's technology, and unlimited potential for the future."