Shoichiro Toyoda, whose leadership for more than half a century guided Toyota Motor Corp. to becoming a global giant, took after his father in not being afraid to get his hands dirty. 

He grew up being told by Toyota’s founder Kiichiro, who was passionate about manufacturing Japanese cars, “Anyone who doesn’t wash his oil-smeared hands three times a day can’t be called an engineer.”

Shoichiro helped his father with another of his passions, constructing a pond on the premises of their home.

That way, the young boy learned how to knead cement and use formworks.

Shoichiro studied technologies concerning diesel engines at the graduate school of Tohoku University after graduating from Nagoya University.

Around this time, he helped manage factories manufacturing chikuwa fish sausages, which his relatives opened in the postwar era when food was in short supply.

He was once sent to Hokkaido to give technological instructions to the chikuwa-making company’s staff.

In 1952, he joined Toyota when he was 27, following his father’s sudden death that year.

He started working at the company together with its employees to realize Kiichiro’s wish to manufacture cars that could compete with U.S. car titans General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. 

Shoichiro, Toyota’s honorary chairman, died on Feb. 14 at the age of 97. 

He lived his life as a top manager in the tumultuous era of the post-war recovery and high economic growth, the trade friction with the United States and the bursting of the “bubble era,” guiding Toyota to become one of Japan’s leading companies.

Shoichiro also helped lead the Japanese economy when it needed to respond to the challenges of globalization by serving as chairman of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), the nation’s largest business lobby. 

He was a manager who loved creating things.

Some time after turning 30, he was ordered by Toyota to serve as chair of its committee to build the Motomachi Plant in Aichi Prefecture. 

When Japan was turning out fewer than 200,000 cars a year, Toyota decided to build a huge factory in Aichi Prefecture’s Toyota city to manufacture 60,000 cars annually, a project risking the company’s fortunes. 

After the completion of the factory, he managed it as its first director.

He was also deeply involved in exporting Toyota cars, which became the company’s key business.

The automaker started exporting the Toyota Crown in 1957, but many U.S. drivers complained that it wasn’t powerful enough for America’s sprawling interstate system. 

It was Shoichiro who approved exporting the Toyota Crown to the United States after test-driving it in New York, Boston and Detroit.

He regretted this, thinking that it was just a “superficial test.”

After this episode, he took particular care to repeatedly test-drive cars in areas where such vehicles would be driven.

He devoted himself to manufacturing automobiles that were as good as U.S. cars in terms of capabilities, quality and prices.

In 1982, he became the first president of the new company, Toyota Motor, that was born in the same year by merging Toyota’s sales and production organizations.

The first thing he did as president of the company was to accelerate the overseas production of Toyota cars to help ease the trade friction between Japan and the United States.

In 1984, Toyota Motor launched a joint venture called NUMMI with General Motors in California under his leadership.

In 1985, the company announced that it would enter the North American market on its own.

In 1989, the company launched a new brand called Lexus, demonstrating its manufacturing prowess in the luxury car market, traditionally a strong area for German carmakers.

He became the first chairman of Keidanren from the auto industry in 1994.

At that time, he was already involved in an initiative to attract a world expo to Aichi Prefecture.

He eventually helped successfully stage Expo 2005 in the prefecture as chair of its organizer, the Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition.

He used to attend every year the annual ceremony to celebrate the achievements of Sakichi Toyoda, his grandfather and founder of Toyota Group.

The ceremony is held on Oct. 30, the anniversary of Sakichi’s death in 1930, in his hometown of Kosai, Shizuoka Prefecture, where the house he was born in still stands.

Shoichiro didn’t attend the ceremony in recent years, but he was fond of visiting his family’s hometown areas.

He was passionate about engineering and manufacturing even in his old age.

In 2012, he attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition held to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the company at the Toyota Automobile Museum in Nagakute, Aichi Prefecture.

As soon as he saw a row of historical models of Toyota Crown in the exhibition room, he started talking about the mistakes made on each model to reporters who had gathered there.

He said, “This model looks good, but the engine overheats,” or “This rear door is a bit too narrow.”

Then he finished by saying, “After making nine mistakes, you can create something good in the 10th attempt.”

These words described how he led Toyota by not being afraid to make mistakes.

(This article was written by Tomohiro Yamamoto and Takeshi Narabe.)