The fable of the birth of the Japanese automobile industry: A reconsideration of the Toyoda-Platt agreement of 1929

In discussing the birth of the Japanese automobile industry, most researchers and journalists put the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Toyoda-Platt Agreement at centre-stage. It has been widely asserted that the one million yen (�100,000) that was received as a result of the Agreement provided Kiichiro Toyoda with the means to begin his research on the automobile. But the historical evidence does not support this legendary story, and in many ways contradicts it. This article aims to set the historical record straight.Toyota, Toyoda-Platt agreement, Technology transfer, Lancashire, Textiles,