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Against All Odds: The Story of the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Family That Created It

1993

Synopsis

When Toyota introduced its new Lexus luxury cars in the United States in 1989, many experts predicted the line would sell poorly. Although journalists raved about the cars, skeptics insisted Americans would never pay thirty-five thousand dollars for any Japanese car - regardless of its acknowledged quality and value. But Toyota's innovative marketing and obsession with customer satisfaction soon made Lexus the top imported luxury car in the United States. Against All Odds is the incredible saga of how the family of an obscure Japanese textile-machine inventor revolutionized automobile production methods, while building a company that Fortune magazine has called "the best car maker in the world." Improvising such now-famous techniques as kaizen (or continuous improvement) and just-in-time production, and staying one step ahead of insolvency, the company worked incessantly to control costs - foreshadowing today's international business creed. But it wasn't until Toyota - whose early models were often fraught with defects - added total quality-control to its lean production methods that the company found real success with its early Corollas and Coronas. Against All Odds shows how the forces of necessity, fierce domestic competition, and Japanese provincial values combined to influence the development of the third largest auto manufacturer. It takes readers behind the mystery that has always shrouded Japanese corporations. There they'll discover the colorful personalities who built Toyota, and who helped to transform a country with a short industrial history into the second capital of the automotive world. This tale of personal determination and family rivalries is played out against the backdrop of Japan's political and economic development - and its relations with the United States. The massive shadow of the U.S. auto makers is omnipresent, teaching Toyota that an underdog in an industry of giants could only succeed by giving customers more than what they wanted for less.

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