Founders - Kiichiro Toyoda

First location - Nagoya, Japan

Toyota was founded in 1926 as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. by Sakichi Toyoda, the inventor of a series of manual and machine-powered looms. The most impressive of these was the Toyoda Automatic Loom, Type G, a completely automatic high-speed loom featuring the ability to change shuttles without stopping and dozens of other innovations. At the time it was the world's most advanced loom, delivering a dramatic improvement in quality and a twenty-fold increase in productivity.

In 2007, this machine was registered as item No. 16 in the Mechanical Engineering Heritage of Japan as "a landmark achievement that advanced the global textile industry and laid the foundation for the development of the Toyota Group."