As we turn our attention from Toyota to Subaru, we note that the company’s USA-based Subaru.com Company News page contains only the following press release regarding post-Japanese earthquake and tsunami aid: Subaru Responds to Japan Relief and Recovery We are deeply saddened by the devastation resulting from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Our […]

After continuing to assess the situation, Toyota has released the following schedule for the gradual restart of vehicle production, as noted on the carmaker’s USA and Global Newsrooms: Thursday 17 March: Resumption of production of replacement parts at seven plants near Toyota City, in central Japan, to be shipped to service centers for repairs to […]

Amidst managing and posting all the incoming information on the tragic earthquakes and tsunami that beset Japan late last week, we buried information on how and where to help with your donations in a link in the 11th paragraph of our Saturday 12 March story. In retrospect, this was a dumb decision that simply did […]

With, as of this writing, the official death toll from northeast Japan’s earthquakes and tsunami standing at 1900 (and fears it may climb as high as 10,000 in Miyagi province alone), it is obvious that it remains to be seen how far the ramifications and repercussions from this natural disaster will extend. Today the Toyota […]

The above map of many of Japan’s carmaking facilities comes to us from the Japan Automobiles Manufacturers Association via an informative article by Edward Niedermeyer of The Truth About Cars. While certainly very helpful and illustrative, bear in mind that it is by no means all-inclusive, with Toyota’s Central Motor Company facility in Miyagi prefecture […]

Kaizen Factor has learned of a couple of official statements from Toyota regarding the tragic earthquakes and tsunami afflicting Japan. The first of these comes to us from Toyota spokesperson Dion Corbett via an article from The Truth About Cars‘ Japan-based correspondent Bertel Schmitt and reads as follows: TMC has established a company-wide emergency task […]

On Wednesday 9 March 2011 word came that an earthquake of 7.3 magnitude on the Richter scale was felt in Japan. As optimistic reports of no damage or casualties emerged, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief and turned its attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, that tremor was but a warning shot for what transpired two […]

Our world-exclusive invitation to witness the de-vanning process of the first three (followed by the second three) Lexus LFAs to arrive in the United States led to a clamor by other automotive media to witness the process for themselves. Jonathon Ramsey of Autoblog wrote an excellent and very informative account of the process for LFAs […]

The 2011 auto show season has brought us Toyota’s somewhat unexpected two-pronged approach to the first additional member of the “Prius family”: the 5-passenger Prius v with a nickel-metal hydride battery hybrid system for North America, and the identically-bodied 7-passenger Prius+ with a lithium-ion battery hybrid system for Europe. We were left to wonder, however, […]

The 2011 Geneva Auto Show is home to key Toyota models that have been unveiled for the world to see. The FT-86 II Concept, Yaris HSD Concept, the Prius+ (aka Prius V for North America) and the EV Prototype (which is an electrified version of the Toyota/Scion iQ). Toyota’s global vision is to bring back […]

Following up on our recent article on six of the official Toyota-branded vehicles at the 2011 Tokyo Auto Salon, here are the other six vehicles that complete the “Toyota dozen” at the TAS: Toyota FJ Cruiser JAOS Selected by Modellista (by Modellista) Founded in 1997, Modellista is an in-house Toyota arm whose primary (but by […]

So how do you turn the flagship LS 600hL into the newest premium luxury compact hybrid, the CT 200h? Dr. Tokokira has the answer… [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ZaD6CUWeI] “The Minimizer Story – The experiments of Dr. Tokokira. Episode 4” Source: Lexus Italia

Our previous Kaizen Factor story certainly sent tongues wagging and hits soaring, while raising much suspicion among the hardcore Lexus LFA fan community. The resemblance between Paris’ purported LFA and the Pearl Yellow prototype that was the subject of Kaizen Factor stories as far back as August 2010 was a bit much for numerous internet […]

The members of Club Lexus, like other self-respecting Lexus fans, have been doing their share to track The Sexy Six, the first six Lexus LFAs to arrive on U.S. soil. A constantly-updated thread stickied atop CL‘s LFA Forum will keep a very useful running tab on the LFAs as they emerge from the Motomachi plant […]

For fans of aftermarket tunes, mods and tweaks, be they mild or wild, to factory-stock vehicles, each major car-producing continent offers an annual blowout show that showcases the newest and, some times, most outrageous offerings by carmakers and aftermarket firms alike. In the Americas, it’s the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers’ Associaton) Show held annually in […]