Word: toyota
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...When Toyota introduced its Lexus LS 400 luxury automobile in September, it ran ads touting the $35,000 sedan as the ingenious brainchild of "1,400 perfectionists" and "close to faultless." Toyota was wise to hedge that claim. Because of safety defects, the company last week recalled all 8,000 of the Lexus LS 400s it has sold in the U.S. The Japanese carmaker made the decision after it received some customer complaints about loose wiring, a faulty cruise control and a malfunctioning brake light. The defects have caused no accidents or injuries, but the episode is an embarrassment...
...demolished 119 houses. "It just started shaking and tearing at everything it could get hold of," said real estate broker Ike Carroll. Jeweler Robert Husman, buried under debris in his demolished store, squirmed to the surface. "I came up looking at the taillights of a Toyota station wagon," he recalled. The wind had swept the car atop the fallen roof of the building...
Kelly Cutlip was driving along a Los Angeles freeway in June 1988 when a speeding Toyota with a drug-dazed 22-year-old woman at the wheel traversed crazily five traffic lanes, crashed broadside into his pickup and gave him the ride of his life. Cutlip, 36, a marble mason from nearby Irvine, found himself strapped upside down as the truck skidded on its roof at 60 m.p.h., sparks flying past his head like an acetylene shower in a metal shop. "That's it," he announced to his wife that night. "That's the clincher...
Since the downturn began, Japanese manufacturers have made even greater inroads than in healthy times. Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Mazda posted higher sales and gains in U.S. market share in the first half of 1989, largely at the expense of European imports, Chrysler and GM. Of the Big Three, only Ford managed to raise its market share, because its sales slump has been smaller than that of its rivals...
...weekday morning out on Route 31, between Pets of Pennington and Party Things!, the Jazzercise center is alive and humming. Driving everything from BMWs to Toyota pickups, women arrive for class with coffee mugs in hand. The class is a mix of violin teachers, novelists, horse breeders and substitute teachers who range in age from 20 to 60. Some drop off preschool children at the center's nursery; others gather in small groups to discuss someone's vacation tan and the pros and cons of buying a car for a 17-year...