One of the reasons that Volkswagen went to the lengths of building emissions cheating cars was because they needed their sales to achieve a singular goal, that of unseating Toyota as the World’s largest automaker. I guess the joke’s on us since even with the cheating scandal’s discovery, and the dressing down the company received as a result, VW made the grade.
That no doubt has caused some serious hand wringing over in Toyota City. After all, they could only muster an unintended acceleration scandal. Obviously Volkswagen’s evil geniuses are far better than Toyota’s evil geniuses.
Another reason for VW’s capture of the largest automaker title lies in the fact that the German company has long been on a shopping spree. Over the years they’ve managed to scoop up Spain’s SEAT, the Czech maker Skoda, Britain’s Bentley, Lamborghini in Italy, and of course Audi in the homeland, which is made up from the remnants of NSU and Auto Union. That’s a lot of Christmas cards to send out every year.
Toyota on the other hand has only five brands—Toyota, Hino, Lexus, Ranz, and Daihatsu (gesundheit)—to its name. And, aside from Toyota, none of them are sales chart champions. That leads to the question, should Toyota go shopping to fill out its brands and at the same time its sales? If they did, who do you think would most benefit from Toyota Ownership? What would be the best synergistic purchase for the Japanese company to make, one that would also ensure they regain the title of world’s largest automaker?
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Hooniverse Asks: What Company Should Toyota Buy to Regain the Title of World's Largest Automaker?
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47 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: What Company Should Toyota Buy to Regain the Title of World's Largest Automaker?”
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Buying Volkswagen should do the trick.
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Genuinely unsure how to feel about this. I feel like there couldn’t possibly be two such giant carmakers with such opposing philosophies, but indeed, VW and Toyota are quite different.
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Are the guys in India tired of Land Rover/Jaguar yet? A reliable Jaguar sounds like a great idea.
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Word on the street is the new F-Type actually starts three Sunday mornings out of four.
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And on that fourth Sunday, it only doesn’t start because of the owner’s still in bed, shagged out from all the sex he’s been getting thanks to the F-Type in his garage?
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Behind every SUV purchase there’s a little “*” which explains that you buy such a vehicle only after you’re done with a lifetime of shagging.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ff/28/6c/ff286c295ef3731189b1146c18618c02.jpg-
Well, yeah, but we’re talking about the F-Type, not the F-Pace.
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Did you see F-Pace is outselling other Jag products 4-1? For the life of me…I don’t understand the US obsexion with SUVs….
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It allows you to pretend you don’t have kids vs. a minivan? I dunno. I just appeased the wife with a Pilot, so I can’t talk.
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yup…CX-9 in my garage too…..though I avoid driving it. Much prefer my Mazda6 manual.
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See, I can say without squinting that I am a car guy, and even I get confused by this F-up naming convention.
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Oh man… if you blend the character of a Jaaaaaag engine with the durability of a Yota engine and the screaming ripping top end of a Yammer head.
I just gave meself goosepimples.
Toyota is very week in Europe. If they want do battle for the global sales crown, it will need to be successful in Europe, and China, of course. That said, the socialist French Peugeot/Citroen enterprise would not be a good fit. Maybe Toyota could relieve GM of its perennial underperformer Opel….and
turn it around….
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Isn’t Toyota already in bed with BMW on engines and some chassis design? But yeah, it would have to be a merger rather than an acquisition. Toyota/BMW could be interesting, though. Particularly if it resulted in an inexpensive driver’s car — BMW chassis excellence with a Toyota badge, perhaps?
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Since GM has sort of abandoned Holden, they could get them too.
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Holden has got nothing they want. The only Holden product that outsells Toyota is the Commodore, and currently the Trax before the CHR arrives. Toyota had 17.8% of the market last year, with Holden in 4th place at 8%.
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Or Fiat… (after they sell off Jeep & Ram to the Chinese).
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Talk about culture clash……!
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Good point. I read about the 1980s Ford Capri project which was a collaboration between Ford, Mazda and Ghia (I think), and the meetings held in Italy with typically ‘animated’ voices and gestures from the Italians shocked/upset the Japanese present until they grasped that nobody was angry etc.
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I always thought the MK1 MR2 was the spiritual successor to the X1/9.. If either company gets the finger out and makes a modern spiritual successor to either car, I’d be happy.
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Looks like PSA got their first, wouldn’t be the first time they’ve bought the European arm of a US manufacturer, they previously bought the mess that was Chrysler Europe/Talbot/Rootes
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/gm-plans-sale-vauxhall-and-opel-brands-psa-
News to me. Thanks for the tip.
It would be good for GM corporate accounts, but would be a disaster for Opel.
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Probably one of the indie holdouts, like Honda.
But that would be literally the worst thing that could happen to Honda, so that’s a heady “hell no.”
I’m putting Toyota in for the next potential owner of Chrysler and it’s sub-brands, after Fiat gets sick of trying to make it work. Chryco has used up all of it’s cachet in Europe, and I think Toyota could do great things with the Jeep brand, considering the great off-roaders it has historically offered (though the current US lineup is a bit lacking in all but the most expensive trim levels).
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So it would be Toyota’s turn for the “Jeep Curse”. Every company that has bought Jeep has either gone out of business or suffered huge losses.
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Ah, but none of them have been in a good position to support Jeep.
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If you buy Chrysler, you are immediately in a bad position.
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That’s why they should buy Isuzu?
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They already have Hino for the truck side, and Hilux is a pretty strong competitor for the pickups
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Unless a very, very attractive price could be negotiated, there is nothing Toyota really needs from FCA. FCA’s biggest asset is its US dealer network. Toyota has a better one already. Does Toyota need RAM or Jeep? Not really. FIAT has only tiny market share in the European market, so not much of value for Toyota there either.
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::shrugs::
The question was who Toyota should buy to become the sales leader again. Jeep has lots of built-in brand cachet. -
Well, nearly every Japanese-origin carmaker lags behind the American domestics in dealership coverage in the American Midwest, which explains why domestics seem to be more common in the Midwest.
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Subaru
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Subaru is rather small, but Fuji Heavy Industries is a rather huge conglomerate, not sure they would be willing to let go of Subaru.
You mentioned how VW has amassed their automotive empire. Toyota would do well to follow suit. Don’t buy a big player to regain the crown in one fell swoop. Buy up the bit players.
Lotus is an obvious choice. There is already an engine partnership there, and it would give Toyota a real sports car brand. Mitsubishi or Suzuki could become Toyota’s new “youth brand” after the demise of Scion. They dipped their toe in with Mazda when they rebadged the Mazda2 as a Scion WTF, so a Mazda acquisition becomes conceivable.
Or… they could focus less on being the biggest. There is no trophy for being the biggest. Be the best Toyota that you can be. If that sells enough cars to reclaim the title of biggest, that’s great, but focus on being good before being big.
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Mitsubishi was recently purchased by Nissan/Renault, so it would be unlikely it would be sold off anytime soon.
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Suzuki is a fairly good idea since their sales in South/Southeast Asia are very strong. Mitsubishi is being controlled by the Renault/Nissan conglomerate.
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Suzuki is wary of mergers after the Volkswagen ‘merger’ disaster. They ended up sueing VW to get out of it. Maybe they’ll end up back with GM
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Toyota doesn’t have to do anything, except wait, soon VW will have bought back all the cheaty diesels and they won’t have all the demand that action is pulling forward.
To regain the lead, Toyota needs to pick up something like 120,000 sales worldwide, so the obvious answer is to buy MG from SAIC. Twice.
The manly pursuit of the #1 is really only a distraction and not a good one at that. I think even Toyota themselves had admitted that at one point. It also seems like they are trying to diversify under their existing umbrella; witness the Nissan-looking, Honda-named latest SUV thing – CR-V or -H or something? They work with PSA on commercial and tiny cars, but I don’t see a big future in that; so different philosophies. They’ve got the rational customer market covered, so if they reintroduce Daihatsu with sports cars and crazy stuff, I’d cheer for that.
Btw, that intro was hilarious and plain perfect. Nice one!
They need to buy something that lets them into a market where they aren’t really present. So, naturally, Suzuki.
Why them? Suzuki might not be doing all that well in every country, but in India Maruti Suzuki is huge (over half the market I think). India is also a growth market, and one that VW hasn’t really cracked. Toyota owning Suzuki would put them over the edge.
And they could replace the Yaris with the Ignis, which is cute as a button, like a tiny puppy that thinks its a big scary guard dog.
http://indianautosblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Suzuki-Ignis-Water-Activity-Concept-unveiled-for-2016-Tokyo-Auto-Salon.jpg
Oooh, i dunno;
Morgan?
Frazer Nash?
Spyker?
Hispano-Suiza?
Dale?
(Hooniverse question of the day: Why aren’t all commenters on this site highly-salaried members on the board of major automakers? Answers on a postcard please.)
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I mean, I work in the fleet department of a rental car company. My suggestions to just buy up all the remaining Shelby CSX-Ts and press them back into service hasn’t gone well.
They’re weak in Europe and too a lesser degree China and Latin America. To do better in Europe they missed their best chance with DFM from China buying a 14% stake in PSA recently; there are no real alternatives; Fiat is big in Italy and some marginal markets (like Serbia) but not too much use elsewhere (I’ll deal with the rest of FCA in minute), Lancia has atrophied so much they only sell cars in Italy now, no British marques Toyota could buy would add much in terms of volume and VW is unlikely to sell SEAT or Skoda to Toyota. The BMW partnership adds value, but Toyota can’t and won’t buy out BMW or MB, Geely won’t sell Volvo, GM won’t sell Opel, while the Renault-Nissan alliance, thanks to Dacia and a strongly improving Nissan is actually rising in the ranks itself. If they can’t increase their European volume through acquisitions, a better focus would be on hitting new niches like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (Mitsy’s best selling car in Europe by miles); a PHEV CH-R or RAV4, Hydrogen/PHEV Lexus UX/NX/RX or a all electric Aygo would be the best bet.
In China acquisitions may be helpful; specifically gutting FCA for it’s constituent parts. Let Chinese soem Chinese automakers (preferably your JV partners GAC or FAW; but really it’s not too important who) feast on the under performing carcass of FCA; I can see GAC being keen on Maserati and Ram and FAW (or BAIC/SAIC/DFM again it doesn’t matter too much) on Dodge and Alfa Romeo, while the defunct marques and Lancia could quite likely be sold off to GAC/FAW or some 2nd or 3rd tier Chinese conglomerate like Hawtai or Zotye.
Toyota could look at holding onto Ram and Maserati but what is really valuable is Jeep and somewhat surprisingly, Chrysler (well more specifically the Chrysler Pacifica and the autonomous vehicle partnership with Google). If they could add Jeep and Chrysler and say get a better deal out of their Chinese JV partners in exchange for throwing them FCA’s bones. Combining Toyota and Google’s autonomous tech would make Toyota a true market leader in autonomous vehicles, while the non-autonomous PHEV Pacifica tech could be rolled out into Toyota’s fleet of minivans (Alphard, Vellfire, Esquire, Noah, Voxy, Sienna, Wish etc). Jeep is doing well in the US, Brazil with the local collapse of VW there and the introduction of the Renegade and in China. Just keep the current plan; possibly adding a few more niche models based on existing Toyota platforms and voila.
Another strategy would be to buy up Mazda, Suzuki, Isuzu and Subaru; this would probably be the easiest route but beyond Suzuki’s dominant position in India and strong positions in a handfull of other small markets it wouldn’t be that helpful.
One more option would be a Renault-Nissan style alliance with either Ford or Honda.
And there’s always the option of doing a VW like global raid for niche luxury/sports car manufacturers, but given the scale of the current crop of independent high end manufacturers they would be a bigger drain on Toyota’s resources than Bugatti is on VW’s before showing much promise; there might be an argument for acquiring Frazer-Nash for the Metrocab design, while Bristol and TVR are both back from the dead-if likely temporarily; then there’s the Chinese start-ups Faraday Future, LeEco, Lucid Motors, Youxia, Arcfox, NextEV and Aoxin who would greatly value a partnership with a giant like Toyota to help get them moving in the business; they could become an Asian Tesla in which Toyota could hold a large share.
A long-shot guess; but — if the “America first” rhetoric starts to influence purchasing decisions, then the time could be good for an ‘import fighter’ in the US marketplace.
So I propose that Toyota buy up the rights to the ‘Saturn’ nameplate.
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Judging by GM’s previous attempts to sell Hummer, Saab and Saturn that might not go well…
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