HALIFAX — Here I am, sitting in on a presentation by Toyota Canada, anxiously waiting to set out on a drive from Halifax to Montreal as part of a cross-country road trip celebrating their 60th anniversary in Canada. It was eight in the morning and I just flew in the night before, so my mind was feeling a bit foggy until I heard this:
“Every Canadian has a Toyota story.”
At first, I thought this claim was a bit overstated, but I slowly realized it rings true. The Corolla and RAV4 have consistently been some of Canada’s best-selling vehicles over the decades, many of us have hailed a ride in a Camry or a Prius, and the Corolla is often the first vehicle in which many of us would learn how to drive. Heck, even Toyota’s sports cars are a common sight in the grassroots motorsports scene, and Toyota pickups like the Tacoma are the overlanding rig of choice for many. Then I started to think: “What’s my Toyota story?”
We should begin with the car that started my passion for cars: a third-generation Supra. I saw one for the first time when I must have been six or seven, and still living in my hometown of Hong Kong. Back then, cars were often equipped with small-displacement engines as the government applied heavier levies on larger engines. As a result, I was used to seeing cars with tiny 1.5-litre engines or less, so when I found this somewhat unassuming white Toyota used a whopping 3.0L engine, my jaw dropped.
As fate would have it, I met an identical third-generation Supra on this trip, as part of a visit to a Toyota dealership in Moncton, New Brunswick. It brought out the child in me as I walked around and took it all in once again. To most, this may be a simple chance encounter, but deep down, it was a stars-aligning moment where I found one piece of Toyota history intertwined with my own.
Then I had flashbacks learning how to drive in a 1995 Toyota Camry belonging to my friend’s dad. I also spent countless hours being driven around in a 2003 Camry owned by another friend’s family [Whoa, check out this guy with all his friends! —Ed.] and I can confidently say it was the fastest yet most comfortable car I had been in for many years to come.
My Toyota story continue across my family: my father’s first brand-new car was a 1997 Corolla, and his decades-long dream of owning a Lexus came true last year when I found him a 2007 LS 460. Oh, and he uses a 2015 Sienna as his workhorse. Elsewhere in the family, my grandfather had a Toyota Cressida from the ’70s, my wife’s first car after university was a hand-me-down Corolla from her parents, and my uncle is probably going to replace his Venza with another Toyota.
Beyond our personal Toyota stories behind the wheel, it’s important to note the impact of several Toyotas in pop culture. The first-generation MR2 featured in Young and Dangerous — it may be obscure here, but it was popular in Hong Kong through the 1990s — made a lasting impression, the “AE86” Corolla is synonymous with Initial D, and we can’t not mention the iconic Supra from Fast and Furious that transformed car culture as a whole.
And then, there are the special Toyotas I have come across in this line of work. The Toyota Century was an otherworldly experience, and this Toyota Crown Comfort done up like a Hong Kong taxi took me home faster than any flight ever could.
As I continue to reflect on that one quote and the stories that come to mind, I realize Toyota has made one heck of an impact over the last six decades. They are right: everyone really does have a Toyota story, and these stories will continue for decades to come.
