At the Koromo Plant, completed in November 1938, the
Engineering Department facilities were installed on the north side (near the
current Office Building No. 2) of the Head Office building in Toyota City,
while buildings such as the Design Office, Chemical Laboratory, and Vehicle
Testing Office were lined up on the south side (Table 1-48). The combined total
floor area of all engineering department facilities, including the
Administration Office and the Aircraft Research Office, was 3,947 square
meters. All of these facilities built during the founding period of the Koromo
Plant were still being used after the war, except that the Aircraft Research
Office was changed to a prototyping plant.
When development of the Crown began in 1952, Toyota Motor
Co., Ltd. was producing the BX large truck, the SG small truck, the SF compact
passenger car, and the BJ four-wheel drive car, and the company was expecting
to increase the number of models as cars became more popular.1 Furthermore,
Toyota had adopted a completed vehicle sales method beginning with the BX large
truck developed in 1951 and was planning to internally design and manufacture
the body for the RS Crown then under development, further increasing the number
of vehicle development and design steps required. Thus, expansion of the
engineering department became an urgent necessity.
The Toyota Technical
Center at the time of its completion
In November 1953, construction of the Technical Center, a
new R&D facility of the Engineering Department, commenced on the east side
of the Koromo Plant. At that time, the financial foundation of Toyota Motor
Co., Ltd. was still weak and the company had to be careful about capital
investment.1 Due to these restrictions, the Technical Center was built as a two-story
building with a minimal total floor area of 4,807 square meters, with a plan to
eventually convert it into a three-story structure.
Because the Technical Center was completed in October 1954,
the RS Toyopet Crown, whose production had commenced the preceding month,
became the last vehicle model developed at the R&D facility in place since
the company's founding. The Crown, which was exported to the United States in
1957, was not equipped to handle highway driving and its export was temporarily
halted. However, it was redesigned at the Technical Center with the goal of
resuming export to the United States. In this way, the Technical Center paved
the way for Toyota's success in the United States, a country with an advanced
automobile industry.
Small truck frame
torsion testing at the Toyota Technical Center
When it was completed, the Technical Center consisted of a
design office, a styling office, a library, a blueprint office, a chemical
testing office, a physics laboratory, and a vehicle testing office, with a
configuration similar to that of the Engineering Department following the
company's founding. In terms of equipment, the Center installed many
cutting-edge testing systems and experiment/analysis instruments. Subsequently,
the Technical Center building was remodeled into a three-story structure in
October 1963.
Toyota continued to expand, enhance, and update the
Engineering Department's facilities in step with technical advances. As part of
these efforts, the role of the Technical Center was handed over to the new
Technical Center completed in December 2003 after 50 years of existence.
The Honsha Head
Office test drive course seen from the east
After the Technical Center was built, a prototyping plant
(792 square meters) was completed in November 1955, followed by a test track in
September 1956. The test track was constructed at a 330,000 square meter-site
on the eastern side of the Technical Center, and included a two-kilometer oval
test track suitable to 100-kilometer/hour driving and a washboard road with a
total length of 200 meters. In 1957, a skidpad for testing turning performance,
as well as a Belgian brick road and a cobblestone road for testing vibration
noise, were installed. Then, in 1959, a special 'corrugated' road, a twisted
road, and steep hill were added, making it possible to carry out a wider range
of vehicle performance testing.
TEMA-TTC Arizona
Proving Ground
In November 1966, at a vast site in Susono-cho, Sunto-gun,
Shizuoka Prefecture, Toyota built an automobile performance proving ground
(which later became the Higashi-Fuji Technical Center). This center, equipped
with a 3.7-kilometer high-speed circuit and a 1.3-kilometer horizontal
straightway, was used to test high-speed durability, high-speed
maneuverability, braking performance, vibration, and noise.
Toyota later built the Shibetsu Proving Ground, a vehicle
testing facility in Hokkaido, and began operations there in October 1984. Since
Hokkaido's winter temperatures can drop as low as negative 20 degrees celsius,
the Second Circuit, the Third Circuit, and a hill for testing vehicles under
cold driving conditions were completed first, and then a high-speed
10-kilometer oval test truck suitable to 250-kilometer/hour driving was built
in 1987.
Toyota's vehicle proving grounds, which began with the
two-kilometer oval test truck suitable to 100-kilometer/hour driving completed
in 1956, continued to evolve to handle speed increases and the globalization of
cars.
In April 1993, the Arizona Proving Ground of Toyota Motor
Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. Toyota Technical Center
(TEMA-TTC) was completed in Wittman, Arizona. At this proving ground, which is
equipped with a 10-mile (16-kilometer) oval test track, Toyota is conducting
continuous driving tests at 250 kilometer/hour under blazing hot temperatures
exceeding 40 degrees celsius.
Source: Toyota Motor Corporation
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