Toyota has been the top carmaker in the world for so many years now that it’s had to fathom that there was a time when their very existence was in jeopardy. But when this little SA was being made, about 75 years ago, there was a very real danger that the company’s automotive branch was to be cut off from the historical loom side of the business so that Toyota could continue to exist.
The story of the Toyopet SA is one of an ambitious company trying to bite off more than it could chew. The ink on the armistice treaty between Japan and the Allies was not yet dry that Toyota were already starting to plan for the future. And their vision of said future was a bold one.
Up to that point in time, Toyota’s passenger car production had been limited to the AA/AB/AC model, aside from a few prototypes. This first Toyota car, launched in 1936, featured solid axles front and back, a four-door body influenced by the Chrysler Airflow and a 6-cyl. engine resembling a Chevrolet unit. The AC pictured above, launched in 1943, was perhaps the only Japanese motorcar still being made in 1945-46, when a batch of fifty units were assembled for government use.
The new Toyota car was to be almost the antithesis of the AC in every way. It would be light, small, two-door, independently-sprung and basically as advanced as Toyota could make it. It would also feature a new name, chosen by a public contest. The Japanese public thought that marrying the “Toyo” of Toyota with a “pet” would make for a cute and memorable moniker. To which the rest of the world would respond “yikes” in due course, but the name did stick around for decades, and indeed to this very day as a remnant of the JDM dealership networks the company has been trying to do away with of late.
The first decision related to the upcoming Toyota car, though, was the engine. Work on the new S-engine started in September 1945, and the first prototypes were being tested by the following summer. It was a water-cooled 995cc 4-cyl. unit, much smaller than anything Toyota had ever produced. To keep manufacturing and maintenance costs low, Toyota engineers went for side-valves. Initially, it churned out 27hp @ 4000rpm and would be the basis of the firm’s smaller cars and trucks for the foreseeable future.
Truck chassis were a well-known quantity at Toyota, but a truly modern car chassis was a real novelty. And they sure went the whole way with it, with a backbone chassis, a coil-sprung double wishbone IFS and a leaf-sprung swing axle in the back, as well as hydraulic brakes all round. This looked very reminiscent of contemporary Škodas and Tatras – quite advanced, as body-on-frame designs go.
The SA’s shape has usually been likened to the VW Beetle. At least one of the engineers who worked on the car was familiar with the Type 1, as he had attended the 1939 Berlin Motor Show, but in 1946 there were very few resources available to Japanese speakers about the car. None had been imported into the country as yet. So we’re probably looking at a case of convergent evolution more than anything else. Besides, the engine and drivetrain are completely unlike the solutions adopted by Volkswagen.
The little Toyopet came to be in 1947, but the climate was not exactly ripe yet. For one thing, there were still stringent controls from the occupying forces on the number of cars that could be manufactured: in 1947, Japan could make 300 passenger cars and that would be it. Most of Toyota’s energies were expanded in manufacturing trucks, but also a variety of other direly-needed products such as stoves, sewing machines, looms, clothes irons and even prefab houses.
A few months after the launch of the SA, Toyota launched the SB truck chassis (top left). It used the same 1-litre engine as the car, but the chassis was completely conventional. The SB was soon used to develop an entire range, as unlike the SA, it was deemed sturdy enough to be usable on Japan’s primitive road network. The SB truck was soon bodied as 4-door saloons for taxi use (top right, 1951 Nara model; middle left, 1948 model) or as station wagons. The related SD model (1949-52, bottom right) was also developed from the SB – a few were even bodied as convertibles. None of these bodies were strictly “factory:” until the mid-’50s, Toyota only made chassis. The bodies, including that of the SA, were made by various coachbuilders.
But the SA, unsuitable for taxi use due to its two doors and regarded with apprehension due to its sophisticated suspension was not exactly a hit. Desperate to demonstrate that the car was a sound proposition, Toyota organized a race: an SA would depart Nagoya at the same time as the express train to Osaka and try to reach the city before the steamer. Despite the fact that the road was 40km longer than the railway, the Toyopet beat the train by 46 minutes.
A few dozen SAs had been made and sold in 1947-48, but far too few to even start reimbursing the firm’s huge debts. Toyota had invested heavily in 1945-46, rebuilding their main factory near Nagoya (which had been hit by a bombing raid on the last day of the war) and putting together this completely new car that they were now having a lot of trouble selling. High inflation and social unrest became a real problem, so a recovery plan was implemented in early 1949 that initially caused a major economic dip. Toyota’s creditors were becoming restless, and so was the workforce.
The cap on automobile production was eased in late 1949 (though price controls carried on until April 1950), but the situation was now dire for Toyota. They had to fire about 20% of their workers, impose pay cuts for those that remained, created a sales arm in a bid to isolate the industrial part of the company and faced the first (and so far only) strikes in the company’s history.
By early June 1950, CEO Kiichiro Toyoda and his board resigned en masse, to show solidarity with their workers. But later that same month, the Korean War started. Almost at once, Toyota and the rest of Japan were showered in greenbacks, saving the company in the nick of time.
The SA was the only Toyota model that did not see any benefit from the sudden improvement in the firm’s fortunes, though. In May 1952, Toyota quit manufacturing their first post-war car because it plainly hadn’t found its clientele. Only 215 units were made in six years. Even accounting for the extremely challenging times, this was a massive failure.
Well, the chassis certainly was a step too far. But there were a few things that Toyota salvaged from this industrial accident. Silly and superfluous as it sounds, the “Toyopet” name was destined to last a very long time, with JDM cars being badged as such well into the ‘70s.
The other positive was the SA’s side-valve engine, which was a sturdy little unit that powered everything from taxis and trucks to the first Coronas in the late ‘50s. But the backbone chassis, swing axle IRS and even the front suspension were all developed pretty much for naught.
The SA was not the reason why Toyota almost went under in 1950, but it was still a strategic mistake. The Nissan way was probably much wiser: repurpose familiar prewar technology, build on it and develop ties with a foreign carmaker. Other Japanese manufacturers followed that plan exactly: Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Prince and Hino did just that. The SA was probably a very good car, but it was certainly not there at the right time, nor the right place.
Interesting design! I feel it looks better from the front or rear than from the sides.
Long live …live-axle ? Remenber that the Corolla took its time fully embracing FWD. In the early 1980s, both drivetrains were even available simultaneously. The Starlet RWD, sold until 1983, was their smallest vehicle, a sort of miniature Chevy II. Even the first Tercel seemed hesitant with its longitudinal engine layout.(but so good for his 4×4 wagon) .Toyota remains a conservative brand, maybe no more with the ‘imposition’ of turbo , but I stopped buying them since their models no longer offer the 3 round mechanical buttons for the HVAC. It’s been a while.