KARIYA, Japan—Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled to the media last week its historic plant here, which is where the company’s first prototype vehicle was developed in the early years of the Showa era (1926-1989). Called “The Prototype Plant at the Establishment of Toyota,” it has an atmosphere of the early days of the domestic auto industry. The plant will open to the public from July 18.
It was at this plant in 1935 that Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota and grandfather of current Toyota President Akio Toyoda, developed a prototype automobile, a model for the company’s first mass-produced cars. The plant can be said to be the starting point from which the Toyota Group expanded into the automobile industry from its original loom manufacturing business.