Toyota to Remake Its 1936 AA

06/24/96

Toyota Motor Corporation has announced that it will issue a modern, limited edition of the first car the company produced. The Toyota Classic is an up to date version of the Toyota AA that copies the earlier model's 1930s look: its a black, four-door sedan with a huge grill in the front, bug-eyed headlights, and rounded fenders.

Toyota will sell 100 of the cars and charge roughly $75,000 for each of them. The AA was Toyota's first car, and was engineered by Kiichiro Toyoda, the oldest son of an inventor of automatic looms for the textile industry. Toyoda came up with his original design for the sedan by imitating Chrysler's style and Chevrolet's engine. Between 1936 and 1941, Toyoda sold 1,404 cars.

The Japanese car industry has experienced something of a "retro" boom, recently, which was initiated by Fuji Heavy Industries who have sold 62,000 Vivio Vistro minicars with a wide chrome grill in the last seven months. The automaker had only expected to sell 3,500 of the cars in that time period.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel