Word: toyotas
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...swift U.S. buildup by Toyota and rivals like Honda has revitalized whole communities. A University of Kentucky study credits Toyota's Georgetown presence with creating 22,000 jobs in the state (the plant itself employs 6,500) and adding $1.5 billion to the state's economy during its eight years in operation. Soaring property-tax rolls have enabled Georgetown to build new police and fire stations and community-care facilities. In Princeton property values are taking...
Hopes for similar surges, along with jobs and rising income, drew throngs of townspeople and the high school band in Buffalo two weeks ago to groundbreaking ceremonies for Toyota's West Virginia engine plant. Local schoolchildren sang a haiku ("Cherry Blossoms born of spring, let's go see, let's go see") as dignitaries planted 10 Japanese maples to symbolize Toyota's new U.S. roots. For Senator Jay Rockefeller, landing Toyota marked the capstone of a 20-year crusade to boost the economy of one of the country's poorest states. Thanks to Toyota, Rockefeller says, Buffalo...
However long that takes, Toyota has already created a corn-fed hybrid of East and West along the I-64 corridor. About half of Toyota's top 100 executives in the U.S. are American. And there are about 50 Japanese in the 6,500 person work force at the Georgetown plant. At the Tachibana sushi bar in nearby Lexington, Kentucky, manager Takashi Iwata serves raw fish to Japanese diners as well as to locals raised on burgers and barbecued ribs. "I am happiest when I have customers in cowboy shirts using chopsticks," Iwata says. "But to tell you the truth...
...Toyota has its own reason for smiling. All this is a long way from the company's modest U.S. debut in 1957, when the first Toyopet Crowns--woefully underpowered tadpole-shaped vehicles--were unloaded from the freighter Toyota Maru in Long Beach, California. Yet even as Toyota improved its cars and gained market share, the company remained reluctant to build them on American soil. Not until 1985, when Honda and Nissan were already producing cars in the U.S., did Toyota decide to build the Georgetown plant. The company has since been at pains to avoid such stereotypes as those spoofed...
Since then, Toyota has Americanized itself at a rapid pace, which accelerated last year after a nasty trade dispute in which the Clinton Administration threatened to slap a 100% tariff on luxury cars like Toyota's Lexus. Shortly afterward, Toyota executives swooped into Indiana to pick a site for the T100 truck plant and sped up the timetable for the new West Virginia factory. Says senior vice president Jim Olson, a 16-year Ford veteran who joined Toyota in 1985: "It will now be very difficult for the Big Three to attack us as the enemy at the border...