Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan. It has over taken GM at one time as world largest car company, but GM has retaken that title. In terms of name recognition, Toyota is the only car manufacturer to appear in the top 10 of the BrandZ name recognition ranking.

In 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product Type A engine and its first passenger car (the Toyota AA) in 1936. The company was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Toyota owns and operates Toyota, Lexus, Scion brands and has a majority shareholding in Daihatsu Motors , and has minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, and the engine, motorcycle and marine craft manufacturer Yamaha Motors. The company includes 522 subsidiaries.

blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/business/26toyota.html?ref=business --> Toyota is headquartered in _Toyota and Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture and in Tokyo. It also provides financial services through its division Toyota Financial Services and also creates robots besides automobiles. The company along with the original Toyota Industries form bulk of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world.