A Look At Toyota's First Pickup Truck, The Model G1

Arguably, Toyota has made some of the most reliable trucks ever built. Although Toyota Motor Corporation is perhaps best known for manufacturing reliable, fuel efficient sedans and small passenger vehicles, it has indeed been making trucks for the better part of the past 100 years, delivering their first build back in 1935.

Dubbed the Model G1, the first Toyota truck was understandably a far cry from the stylish pickups the Japanese automaker is rolling off the production line these days, in no small part because it was essentially a 20-foot transportation truck designed more for carrying heavy loads from Point A to Point B than moving civilians through the suburbs and city streets. Founder Kiichiro Toyoda and his team had been working up designs for the G1 for some time prior to its release, ultimately basing the build of their prototype on a Ford truck produced for the 1934 model year.

Due to the reportedly hasty turnaround time for production on the G1 prototype, parts from Fords, Chevrolets, and other vehicles were even used to get the truck up and running. As it was, the very first Toyota Model G1 rolled off the assembly line in August 1935. Of course, it did so with a different name on the badge, as Toyota technically didn't exist yet.

[Featured image by Mytho88 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]

If you've followed the history of Toyota Motor Corporation, you know the company as we know it today didn't come into being until 1937. Until that time, any vehicles manufactured by the brand-in-the-making bore the name of its founding family, Sachiko Toyoda and Kiichiro Toyoda. The latter Toyoda was the catalyst for the formation of the company's automobile wing and subsequent transition into one of Japan's biggest automobile manufacturers. 

Production officially began on the Model G1 in March of 1935, with the prototype being completed on schedule six months later. The G1 indeed left the assembly line with a name other than Toyota on the badge. However, the name forever emblazoned on the badge of the company's first ever truck wasn't far off, instead displaying the actual surname of the Toyoda family. Toyota's first passenger vehicle, the model AA, debuted a year later bearing the same Toyoda badge, with vehicles utilizing that spelling until the 1937 founding of Toyota Motor Corporation.

If you're curious about the name change, it seems the company took the spelling Toyota because it requires only eight strokes to write in Japanese (as opposed to Toyoda's 10) and eight is considered a lucky number in Japanese culture. One can only imagine Kiichiro Toyoda and his partners regretted not changing the spelling of the company name prior to the debut of the Model G1 truck, as the vehicle reportedly experienced some very bad luck on the way to its premiere party.

The Toyoda team was hoping to show off their Model G1 prototype truck at the Tokyo Jidosha Hotel Shibaura Garage in November of 1935. Unfortunately, the truck did not make it to the party on time even after departing the Toyoda factory at 5 a.m., because it broke down on the way. More specifically, the truck's third arm broke while on the road to the Tokyo Jidosha Hotel. It took so long to do the repairs that the vehicle didn't pull into the hotel's garage until 4 a.m. the next day.

Apart from that initial hiccup, the Model G1 was well-enough received when it finally hit the streets. Given the successful models Toyota has developed in its history in the truck market, one could easily call the Model G1 a groundwork-laying success.