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TheDetroitBureau.com’s Headlight News offers a look at the past week’s top automotive news stories, as well as what’s coming up in the week ahead. Check out the week’s top story and our latest review…along with a dive into the past with this week in automotive history.

home > news > Automobiles > The Rearview Mirror: A Farmboy Begets a Dynasty

Leave it to a farmboy to birth an automotive empire. That happened this week in 1867, when Sakichi Toyoda was born in Japan. He later established the Toyoda Loom Works, which in turn would lead to the Toyota Motor Corp.

Sakichi was born to Ikichi and Ei Toyoda. Ikichi was a farmer who moonlighted as a carpenter to support his family. Sakichi followed his father into carpentry, but became interested in a hand loom used by area farmers. Soon, he started tinkering, trying to develop a way to increase its efficiency. In 1890, he visited the Third National Machinery Exposition in Tokyo, and became immersed in trying to understand how machines work. 

Something clicked. The following year, Sakichi received his first patent for an improved loom. He was just 24 years old. The new design required one hand to operate, not two. This improves the woven fabric’s quality and increases the loom’s efficiency by as much as 50 percent. In 1892, Sakichi opened a small factory in Tokyo outfitted with his looms, but it shut within a year.

Sakichi returned to his hometown, and began to focus on developing a power-operated loom. In 1897, The Toyoda Power Loom debuted as Japan’s first self-powered loom, stopping if the thread breaks or runs out. This allowed one worker to handle dozens of pieces at a time. 

The idea of equipment that automatically stops when there’s a problem would become a fundamental part of the Toyoda Production System.

Toyoda continued to refine his loom even as he tried to market it. But the companies he worked with failed.

Undaunted, in 1910, he toured the United States and England, visiting weaving factories and loom manufacturers. He returned to Japan convinced of the superiority of his design. In 1911, he established the Toyoda Automatic Weaving Mill, which proved successful enough for Toyoda to open facilities in China. As his business expanded, he worked with his son, Kiichiro, and others to perfect his ultimate ambition: an automatic loom.

He finally succeeded in 1924, developing the Toyota Type G Automatic Loom after decades of work. Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd. is established in Nagoya two years later. Risaburo Toyoda, Sakichi’s son-in-law, is named president. Kiichiro Toyoda is managing director.

Toyoda sold the patent rights for the loom for $150,000 to Platt Brothers & Co. Ltd., a textile machinery manufacturer based in England, and soon after, the looms were in use in worldwide.

The money raised is used to help his son realize his own vision.

By this point, Kiichiro was interested in automobiles, an interest that arose after a severe earthquake left Japan’s rail lines crippled. Cars and trucks proved crucial in the aftermath. But Japan didn’t make its own vehicles. In 1929, the market was dominated by foreign manufacturers, including General Motors and Ford, which built cars in Japan at the time. 

Sakichi challenged his son not to follow in his footsteps, but to find his own path, challenging his son to “build a Japanese car with Japanese hands.” The money the company earned from patent rights would be the seed money. 

But Sakichi never lived to see the results. He died the following year at age 63.

Within a year, Kiichiro set up the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works’ automotive department and built the first engine, based on a Chevrolet design. Research continued, and on Sept. 1, 1933 Toyoda Automatic Loom Works formally decided to enter the automobile business. A plant site was selected and a factory was designed with the aim of producing 2,000 cars a month. 

By 1936, the first Toyota entered production. Dubbed the Model AA, its engine is a knockoff of a Chevy block, as its chassis and electrical system. And its design clearly mimics the DeSoto Airflow. The following year, the Automotive Department was spun off and Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. was established as a new company.

It was a humble start for a company that 86 years later produces more cars, trucks and SUVs than any other manufacturer — including the once mighty GM and Ford. 

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