Fashback on run-away success Corolla at 50

With 44 million units sold since 1966

Turning a golden age in the life of any human being or an institution is by no means a small achievement. Most followers and industry watchers in the global automotive industry may have forgotten that this past weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the Toyota Corolla. The Japanese nameplate is one of the world’s best-selling cars. Since the first-generation Corolla went on sale in Japan on November 5, 1966, well over 44 million units have been sold globally

How the Corolla came about. In the late 1950s, as Japan’s economy recovered from World War II, automakers saw the need for an affordable car for the average family, most of whom did not have a vehicle. Toyota had originally offered the Publica, which was not very well received. In 1966, it introduced the sportier two-door Corolla with a jaw-dropping plan to build 30,000 of them a month at a time when Toyota’s total monthly production was 50,000 vehicles. The car sold well as Japanese consumers aspired to get the “3 C’s” (colour TVs, cars and coolers, as in airconditioners). Three years after launch, Corolla was the country’s top-selling car and helped usher in an age of motorisation in Japan. For the first-generation Toyota Corolla, going-theextra-mile “add-on” was its sportiness, despite being a family car. The man in charge of developing the original Corolla, Tatsuo Hasegawa gave the car a four-speed manual transmission. The four-speed manual transmission operated by a gearshift on the floor, instead of the more typical 3-speed, column shifter at the time. In case you have forgotten, the Corolla also had an 1100cc engine, a bit larger than that of its rival, the Nissan Sunny. No longer king, however. After 33 straight years as Japan’s top-selling model, the Corolla lost the crown in Japan to Honda’s Fit (Jazz) in 2002. But at the Nigerian local market, incidentally, the sedan appears to have remained sure-footed on its sales lead especially during this decade. But beyond Nigeria, and in advanced countries where many customers are more informed and very discerning on what they want and what can give them good returns on investment, the model is now outsold in Japan by the Toyota Aqua and Prius hybrid-only models as domestic customers opt for more fuel-efficient cars. The story and overall outlook at the local market

The story and overall outlook at the local market has remained very bleak in quick successive years, with the overall car market shrinking progressively further along with the population growth, unfavourable exchange rate of the naira and growing middle class with low income. Domestic sales of the Corolla are now about a quarter of their peak of around 400, 000 in 1973. The Corolla is still a cash cow in the United States, where it is the second bestselling passenger car model so far this year, behind only the Toyota Camry. Nigeria’s biggest economy ally; South Africa only got its first taste of the trusty sedan with the third-generation model, which started production at the KwazuluNatal plant in 1975. Nonetheless, the following two decades saw the sedan, along with its Conquest and Tazz hatchback variants, shoot right to the top of the sales charts, while success was also attained on the track and rally stages