Meanwhile, Taizo Ishida is the new President of TMC. As part of an agreement with Ford, engineers are to be replaced, but the American side vetoes this because of the Korean War that has broken out in the meantime. So only skilled persons from Toyota can travel, above all Eiji Toyoda.

He uses the opportunity thoroughly to look at production facilities, where 8,000 instead of 40 units are manufactured at home every day, but also experiences the decline at Ford, where one only perceives the favorable market situation, but hardly invests in the outdated plants.

So he can sum up that it is not impossible to stand up to Ford one day in the future. However, he does not mention the sheer size of the production facilities. It is arguably the moment when Toyota, due to scarce financial resources, is forced to build up the effective manufacturing for which it is later so praised.

However, the Korean War defused TMC's situation considerably, because the Americans suddenly found it cheaper to get the trucks from nearby Japan than to bring across the Pacific. And so the truck is the first to benefit from modernized production methods.

And then there's still the spinning and weaving fabrication, which has actually earned the money so far. One can also get suggestions from there. An example is 'kaizen', the precise observation and constant tracking of errors, i.e. improvements made by those directly involved in production.

This also includes 'just in time', the avoidance of costly interim storage by precisely adapting one production step to the next. This also affects the suppliers, who later often go along with every new factory building.

The Ministry for Iinternational trade and Iindustry plays an important role in further occasions, for example to provide by financial support and exempting certain taxes to intervene in a guiding manner. In the automotive industry, the levying of duties on foreign products is important.

The first passenger car is built on the truck platform for faster realization. It is intended for the taxi trade, which accounts for the majority of car owners. The SF model was created, but it was not immediately successful because of its awkward truck format. Also, it is initially more expensive than imported products including duty.

And just as Eiji Toyoda learned from American production facilities, Kenya Nakamura now tours by the industry and taxi companies with a specially assembled team and asking them about their wishes. This then flows into the planning, with the team remaining together until the final functioning production.

Of course, the construction of a new and so different car takes time. Meanwhile, about 200 SF are manufactured per month. But the competition is getting tougher and tougher. Prices have to be lowered twice. Only as these can no longer be undercut by an Austin built by Nissan does the SF achieve modest success.

Crazy, but it's mainly the trucks that bring in profits, which are probably used to subsidize car sales. Because the prices can hardly be increased despite numerous improvements. But at least the Americans' strict entry controls force Toyota to continuously improve its production.

More and more improvements in textile manufacturing are being used in production, so that one worker can now operate several machines and does not have to constantly monitor them because the report themselves if there are malfunctions and the work is completed. Surprisingly enough, even complete production processes are stopped until the error is corrected.