BIRTH GIANT OFA
Toyota’s comprehensive museum takes visitors on a journey far longer than its own history
You might think that the Toyota Automobile Museum would just feature the history of the largest Japanese marque, but it’s so much more than that.
The collection, housed in a purpose-built complex a few miles outside the city of Nagoya, celebrates the worldwide history and culture of the automobile.
The museum is split into galleries, featuring cars from the birth of motoring in Europe, the USA and Japan in a timeline demonstrating the diversification of ideas and industry. Each section captures an era in the development from the ‘Dawn of the Automobile’ right through to the ‘Search for a Sustainable Future’. Nearly 150 vehicles are displayed across two floors, with excellent multilingual information boards justifying each vehicle’s inclusion.
Toyota’s car manufacturing history began with the Toyoda Model AA in 1936; prior to that it made automatic weaving looms. The company changed its name to Toyota the following year because it was considered easier to pronounce and simpler to write in Japanese. The AA featured an overhead-valve 3389cc straight-six engine and was based on American designs of the day – it bears a striking resemblance to the aerodynamic styling of the Desoto Airflow that is also to be found in this gallery. The museum’s Model AA is a replica, having been built from original drawings because the only example that still exists is in a parlous state in the Louwman Museum in The Netherlands.
The automobile timeline starts at the top floor of the museum, with the first gallery featuring cars from 1890 to 1910. Taking centre stage is a 1899 Panhard et Levassor Type B2, the first car to feature a front-engined, rear-wheeldrive configuration. The pioneering French marque had also introduced the steering wheel on its 1894 4CV model in the first-ever motor race from Paris to Rouen that year.
There are some real rarities on display here, including a 1909 Stanley Steamer. Twin brothers Freelan and Francis Stanley from Massachusetts had started out making photographic plates, selling up to Eastman Kodak before going into the steam car business. There are more firsts in the shape of the standard starter motor and electric headlamps fitted to a 1912 Cadillac Model Thirty. The electrical system by Delco provided 24V for starting and 6V for lighting.
The Hispano-suiza H6B 32CV on display was considered one of the finest automobiles in the world in 1928, with four-wheel servo brakes derived from aircraft technology and an allaluminium, overhead-cam 6597cc engine.
A French Blue Bugatti Type 35B, one of the most iconic pre-war GP cars, heads a line-up of machines that tells the story of ‘Advances in Racing’. Behind stands a British Racing Green Bentley, the national colours harking back to the Gordon Bennett Cup of the early 20th century.
An obscurity from the home-grown industry is the Tsukuba-go. Just 130 were built in a threeyear period from 1935 by Tokyo-based car ‘The firm’s car-making history began with the Toyoda Model AA in 1936 – prior to that it made automatic weaving looms’ company Jidosha Seizo. Named after Mt Tsukuba in Kanto province, and with a 737cc ‘four’, it looks strikingly similar to an Austin Seven, but is front-wheel drive.
Earlier still is another Austin Seven lookalike, the rather grandly named Datson Model 11 Phaeton from 1932. After being launched as DAT, the initials of its founders, the marque added ‘son’ to signify its smaller cars – changed to Datsun in 1934 by parent company Nissan.
A series of 1930s and ’40s American classics are displayed together, the innovative Cord 812