He put Toyota in the spotlight, but Eiji Toyoda fled the limelight

摘要

Visionary laid path for Lexus, production system. Eiji Toyoda made the Toyota Motor Corp. into a powerhouse. Many Americans will remember Eiji, who died Sept. 16 at age 100, as the man who laid out the vision for the Lexus brand. But that was just the logical extension of his lifetime's achievement. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the U.S. military decided that rather than scrap Toyota's truck factories, as had been the Occupation's plan, they needed them to supply the United Nations forces fighting in Korea. So they sent Eiji (AY'-jee), who had helped set up his family's vehicle manufacturing company, to Detroit to learn from Ford Motor Co.