Replica of the Toyota Model AA, the first production model of Toyota in 1936

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Toyota Corporation (株式会社豊田, Kabushiki-gaisha Toyota^?), a Japanese automaker, is the world's second largest automaker in terms of number of vehicle sales. In terms of name recognition, Toyota is also the only car manufacturer to appear in the top 10 of the BrandZ name recognition ranking.

The company was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a spinoff from his father (Sakichi Toyoda)'s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. In 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product Type A engine and its first passenger car (the Toyota AA) in 1936. Toyota is headquartered in the Japanese cities of Toyota and Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture and in Tokyo. It also provides financial services through its division Toyota Financial Services and also creates robots besides automobiles. The company along with the original Toyota Industries form bulk of the Toyota Group.

Toyota owns and operates Toyota, Lexus, Scion, has a majority shareholding in Daihatsu Motors , and has minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, and the engine, motorcycle and marine craft manufacturer Yamaha Motors. The company includes 522 subsidiaries. Toyota planned to produce 9.51 million and sold 9.37 million vehicles in 2007. It they are able to fulfill their goal of producing 9.95 million and selling 9.85 million vehicles in 2008, they will set a new industry record..

On 8 January 2008, the company dropped the "Motor" part from its corporate name, calling itself simply "Toyota Corporation" (株式会社豊田 Kabushiki-gaisha Toyota) from "Toyota Motor Corporation." Also, Toyota changed the Japanese writing of its brand name from Katakana to Kanji and "Corporation" has moved from the end to the beginning.

Founding and earlier history

In 1933, Toyoda Automatic Loom Works created a new division devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Kiichiro Toyoda had traveled to Europe and the United States in 1929 to investigate automobile production, and had begun researching gasoline-powered engines in 1930. Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was encouraged to develop Automobile production by the Japanese government, which needed domestic vehicle production partly due to the worldwide money shortage and partly due to the war with China. In 1934, the division produced its first Type A Engine, which was used in the first Model A1 passenger car in May 1935 and the G1 truck in August 1935. Production of the Model AA passenger car started in 1936. Early vehicles bear a striking resemblance to the Dodge Power Wagon and Chevrolet, with some parts actually interchanging with their American originals.