Toyota Motor Corporation was founded in 1937.
The company became an independent business on August 28, 1937, when Toyota Motor Company Ltd. was established. Kiichiro Toyoda led the move to separate automobile manufacturing from Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, the machinery company founded by his father, Sakichi Toyoda.
Toyota’s automotive work began several years earlier. An automobile division was created inside Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1933, the first Toyota Type A engine was completed in 1934, and the Model AA passenger car entered production in 1936. Those earlier dates can cause confusion, but they refer to Toyota’s development and first vehicle—not the founding of the corporation itself.
The company originally used the family name “Toyoda.” It adopted “Toyota” in 1936, partly because the Japanese katakana spelling requires eight strokes, traditionally considered lucky. Toyota’s founding date is therefore distinct from both its 1933 automobile division and its 1936 first production car.