Today, Toyota is a well-known popular brand that has a large share of the car sales market. The Japanese company is renowned for building reliable and sporty cars and has built up a quite a large number of loyal followers.

Toyota has not always done so well though. The company was first started in 1933 with the company being a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. It was set up under the direction of Kiichiro Toyoda who is the son of Sakichi Toyoda who was the founder of the Automatic Loom Works Company. The company was encouraged by the Japanese Government to concentrate on building automotive vehicles due to the war with China. Only a year after, in 1934 the group realised its first type A engine which was then used in the first model A1passanger car.

In 2002 the workers went on strike for nearly two months which had a huge effect on production for Toyota and caused them a lot of problems and Japan as a country was worried about the effect it could have on their trading reputation.