Toyota Auto Body was established on 31 August 1945 as a
corporate spin-off of
Toyota Motor Industry's Kariya plant with the name . At first, it produced auto bodies for Toyota. In 1951, the company became the first Japanese manufacturer in producing a truck body made completely of steel. In the early 1960s, Toyota gave clear functions to some of its then (subcontracting) companies: Toyota Auto Body was centred on producing trucks;
Kanto Auto Works passenger vans and pickups; Arakawa Auto Body
Land Cruisers and special vehicles. In 1960, Toyota Auto Body produced 74,000 trucks (including large trucks, the
Stout, the
ToyoAce), an 87% of Toyota's overall truck production and a 48% of its total vehicle production. In 1964, truck production from Toyota Auto Body (large trucks, the Stout, the ToyoAce, the
Dyna) rose to 116,000 trucks, comprising 90% of Toyota's truck production and 27% of all vehicles. In January 1964, Toyota Auto Body opened a second assembly facility in Kariya, the Fujimatsu plant, which produced the first Japanese
hard-top car during the 1960s, Toyota Auto Body would continue developing and producing design vans. In 1970, Toyota Auto Body production was 149,000 passenger cars and 142,000
commercial vehicles (trucks and buses), although the actual percentage declined to 17.6% of Toyota's total vehicle production. In the 1970s, Toyota Auto Body was one of the first companies in using
quality function deployment (QFD), paralleling the initial developments from
Yoji Akao at
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The rest of the Toyota group adopted the method in 1979. The improvements of Toyota Auto Body on QFD influenced
Ford into adopting it. In 1992, the company established Toyota Body Seiko, an auto parts subsidiary, and began investments to increase the production of vehicles, as the rest of its passenger car business was in decline. In December 1993, Toyota Auto Body opened the van-focused Inabe plant. By the mid-1990s, Toyota Auto Body ventured into the production of high-end passenger vans derived from the HiAce. In 1995, it started producing the
Granvia, a HiAce-based semi-bonneted van made to comply with European safety regulations. From the Granvia the company developed the
Alphard which was launched in 2002. In 2008, it introduced an Alphard twin vehicle, the
Vellfire. In May 2001, Toyota announced it would consolidate all production of Toyota-badged cars intended for the Japanese market into Toyota Auto Body by moving the assembly of the
LiteAce/TownAce Noah and its successor (
Noah) from
Daihatsu. In 2004, Toyota Auto Body incorporated the auto body and vehicle production businesses from Araco. In 2005, the Kariya plant was repurposed for converting vehicles instead of producing trucks. In the
fiscal year ended March 2007, Toyota Auto Body achieved its largest production volume, with about 745,000 vehicles produced during the period. In 2007, Gifu Auto Body became a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Auto Body. In November 2018, Toyota announced it would transfer all van development to Toyota Auto Body. In 2019, Toyota Auto Body announced it would produce the first Lexus-badged passenger van the
Lexus LM, a
badge engineered Alphard, the second Lexus product coming from the company after the Land Cruiser-based
Lexus LX After the transaction was completed, Toyota Body Seiko became a subsidiary of Toyota Boshoku instead of Toyota Auto Body and changed its name to Toyota Boshoku Seiko. Toyota Boshoku may turn Toyota Boshoku Seiko into a wholly owned subsidiary at a later date. to be fully operational by mid-2023. In June 2023, it opened another for its commercial vehicle range in
Fukagawa, Tokyo (within the Toyota Mobility Tokyo store), which is called . In April 2024, Toyota Auto Body fully resumed production after several of its assembly lines were halted for over a month as a result of an investigation into
Toyota Industries-supplied diesel engines. Toyota Auto Body was a
public company until late 2011, when Toyota made it a wholly owned subsidiary and delisted its shares. ==Facilities==