As an inductee into the Automotive Hall of Fame, Akio Toyoda follows Kiichiro Toyoda, Eiji Toyoda, Taiichi Ohno and Shoichiro Toyoda—who all played a major role in the company's development and had a profound connection with the U.S.

• Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation.
• Eiji Toyoda, who learned from American manufacturing and later decided to establish NUMMI.
• Taiichi Ohno, who helped systematize the Toyota Production System (TPS).
• Shoichiro Toyoda, who laid the foundations for Toyota’s localization in North America. 

Together, their stories trace roughly 70 years of Toyota learning from and growing with America. This is because for Toyota, America has never been simply a major market; it has been a decisive teacher. 

In 1921, at the age of 27, Kiichiro Toyoda traveled to the U.S. as part of a tour of industry that also included Europe. Seeing American streets filled with automobiles at a time when the Ford Model T had already become widespread left a profound impression on him. The experience helped inspire his ambition to build cars in Japan and establish a domestic automotive industry.

When Kiichiro Toyoda was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2018, his grandson Akio Toyoda reflected on how that experience in America had helped spark Toyota’s beginnings.

Even after Toyota began building cars, America remained a benchmark. In 1945, Kiichiro urged his colleagues to catch up with the U.s. within three years.

By 1958, the first-generation Crown crossed the Pacific as Toyota’s first full-scale export passenger car to the U.S.

However, the car was not properly suited to U.S. driving—in particular it struggled on highways. Akio Toyoda humorously recalled this setback in his induction speech: “Years later, my father Shoichiro would arrive in Detroit driving a Toyopet Crown.” He proudly parked in front of Ford headquarters and took a photograph. “Then he drove it on the I-94, and his confidence went right out the window!” Akio Toyoda added that the Crown could barely reach 60 miles an hour, and that his father had to use downhill on ramps just to build up enough speed to merge onto the freeway.

Learning from this, Toyota established a core belief: roads make cars.

In 1950, Eiji Toyoda went to the U.S. for talks on a possible technical partnership with Ford. Although the partnership did not materialize, he spent time training at Ford and visiting its plants. He later recalled the enormous difference in scale: Ford produced around 8,000 vehicles a day, compared with just 40 at Toyota.

Yet Eiji Toyoda wasn't looking to copy American mass production. As Japan’s smaller market could not support the same levels of inventory, Toyota needed to find a more suited system. That search would help shape the Toyota Production System (TPS).

Three decades later, the relationship with America entered a new phase. As trade friction intensified between Japan and the U.S., Eiji Toyoda looked for a way to move beyond exports and build vehicles locally. After renewed talks with Ford came to nothing, Toyota reached an agreement with General Motors to establish NUMMI in Fremont, California. The joint venture was established in 1984.

Eiji Toyoda saw it as more than a manufacturing project. For him, cooperation alongside competition was essential to the global economy and he hoped NUMMI would become a model for industrial cooperation between Japan and the U.S.

Eiji Toyoda was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1994.

Taiichi Ohno also drew critical inspiration from America, this time its supermarkets. Shelves that were replenished only when needed helped inspire a fundamental TPS concept: downstream processes taking only what they need from upstream processes.

As “lean production”, TPS would eventually spread around the world and be studied by American companies. Ohno was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2022.

NUMMI became the foundation for Toyota’s deeper roots in North America. Shoichiro Toyoda, who became president of the newly merged Toyota Motor Corporation in 1982, helped turn that experience into a broader commitment to local production.

At NUMMI, one of the biggest questions was whether Toyota’s approach to manufacturing would be locally accepted. Through labor-management dialogue, training in Japan and hands-on support in the workplace, Toyota worked to adapt its way of manufacturing to the local environment.

Building on that experience, Toyota decided in 1985 to establish its own manufacturing operations in North America. Production of the Camry began in Georgetown, Kentucky, and the Corolla in Cambridge, Ontario, in 1988.

For what Shoichiro Toyoda wanted was for Toyota to be a good corporate citizen. Contributing to local economies and communities. That philosophy also extended to suppliers, and included the establishment of the Toyota Supplier Support Center in Kentucky in 1992.

Shoichiro was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2007.

When Akio Toyoda became president in 2009, he faced an immediate turning point. Dealing with the aftermath of the global financial crisis, Akio Toyota was soon hit by a major U.S. recall crisis.

Supported by his colleagues in America and elsewhere, Toyoda moved beyond crisis management to fundamentally reexamine what Toyota should be. He shifted the company away from an excessive emphasis on scale, focusing instead on “making ever-better cars” and becoming the "best in town". That shift reshaped both how Toyota was organized and how it developed vehicles.

This transformation is visible in Toyota’s U.S. lineup. Nameplates like Corolla regained importance, sports cars returned, the GR brand was launched, and electrified options expanded through a multipathway approach.

Since then, Akio Toyota has continued to focus on better meeting increasingly diverse customer needs in different regions. 

Tellingly, Akio’s Automotive Hall of Fame profile bypasses sales volumes. Instead, it highlights the GR Supra, the GR Yaris, his racing persona "Morizo," and his success in reshaping Toyota’s cultural identity around driving passion and performance.

Motorsports is a fitting symbol of this trans-Pacific relationship. Toyota entered NASCAR in 2000 as an outsider, yet built a record of success, earning championships and manufacturers’ titles. Recently, Akio Toyoda even drove a NASCAR Ford F-150 pickup in a demonstration run in Japan sitting alongside the U.S. Ambassador to the country. 

Just as in motorsports, Toyota will continue to hone its people and its cars alongside its colleagues in America.

Note: Titles and names of affiliations are as of the time.