Orange Motor Co history

Founded in 1906, Dorris took over the original St Louis Motor Company plant.

Buggy-maker Russell Gardner shifted to distributing the early Chevrolets, then introduced his own “assembled car” in 1909, put together in St Louis with components from larger manufacturers.

The 1917 Orange city directory listed him under the category of “Investors.” The “Capitalists” in the directory were W.H. Stark and E.W. Brown.

On July 10, 1918, the newspaper had a half-page ad for Blumberg Motor which was seeking investors.

The October 1920 edition of the publication Tractor Word says “The Blumberg Motor Manufacturing Company San Antonio is now in production on its Blumber Stead-Pull tractor, which is of the four-wheel type, 12-24 horsepower.”

The December 24, 1921, edition of the paper had several pages of lists of people who owed delinquent taxes. (A strange way to mark a holiday.) The Blumberg Company owned $44.28 on each of two lots. (A total of $1,142 in today’s money.)

After graduating from Nagoya Technical High School (1932) Ohno joined Toyota and, about 20 years later, began implementing his cost-saving program.

In 1933 Toyoda Kiichiro founded what later became the Toyota Motor Corporation as a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. (later Toyota Industries Corporation, now a subsidiary), a Japanese manufacturer founded by his father, Toyoda Sakichi.

Its first production car, the Model AA sedan, was released in 1936.

Faced with wrecked facilities and a chaotic economy in the aftermath of World War II, the company did not resume making passenger cars until 1947 with the introduction of the Model SA.

Blumberg died in San Antonio in April 1951 at the age of 64.

In 1957 Toyota Motor Sales, United StatesA., Inc., was established, and the following year the company released the Toyopet sedan, its first model to be marketed in the United States; it was poorly received because of its high price and lack of horsepower.

The Land Cruiser, a 4 × 4 utility vehicle released in 1958, was more successful.

In 1965 the Toyopet, completely redesigned for American drivers, was re-released as the Toyota Corona, marking the company’s first major success in the United States.

The company continued to thrive in the American market as well, gaining a reputation for its low-cost, fuel-efficient, and reliable vehicles such as the Corolla, which was released in the United States in 1968.

The company took its present name in 1982, when Toyota Motor Company was merged with Toyota Motor Sales Company, Ltd.

Two years later Toyota partnered with General Motors Corporation in the creation of New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., a dual-brand manufacturing plant in California, where Toyota began United States production in 1986.

Many of its about 1,000 subsidiary companies and affiliates are involved in the production of automobiles, automobile parts, and commercial and industrial vehicles. It became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world for the first time in 2008, surpassing General Motors.

Beginning in 2014, millions of vehicles manufactured by Toyota and several other car companies were recalled by regulators in the United States because of potentially malfunctioning airbags produced by the Japanese automotive-parts supplier Takata.

The top of the ad had the words “Orange Chamber of Commerce Endorses Proposition.” The ad touted how farmers would soon be relying on tractors and investors could buy a share for $100 ($1,750 in 2017).