One of the most interesting, and niche, places we visited while in Japan was the Toyota Museum in Nagoya.
The museum's full name is Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, and covers more than just Toyota automobile history. Please enjoy a quick virtual tour of my time in the museum.
The Toyota Museum is actually more like two museums in one. The first part that visitors see is a huge room filled with museum workers demonstrating how fibers used to be spun by hand (as shown in the videos above), and then how the Industrial Revolution changed the way all sorts of fibers are made.
Somehow nobody in my group saved any photos or videos of the rest of this portion of the museum, but it was really fascinating to see how the textile industry has changed over time.
The museum begins with textiles because the Toyoda family's history began with textiles.
After looking at all of the different textile machines, visitors move into the next part of the museum, the Automobile area. When Kiichiro Toyoda first decided to begin manufacturing cars, he actually had a Chevrolet car from the United States imported to Japan. He then had his workers strip the car down to the bare bones to see how it worked, so that they could then begin making their own automobiles.
The first part of the museum shows the early days of manufacturing, and some of the tools they used (shown above).
One thing I really appreciated about the museum was the fact that all of the signs were written in Japanese with English translations, and not just English translations either, but proper English translations that actually made sense! A lot of the signs we saw in Korea, Japan, and the airport in Hong Kong (where we had a multi-hour layover) were technically in English but were very hard to understand. Not so at the Toyota Museum.
Another thing I appreciated about the museum was how in-depth the signage went into Toyota's early days as a car manufacturer, providing a visual history as well as textual.
The largest part of the museum's floor was taken up by various real examples of Toyota cars throughout the company's history. Some of them were complete showpieces, while others were taken apart to let you see how they were made.
I would say my favorite part of the museum was the moving exhibits. Much like in the first half of the museum that focused on textiles, the second half showcased how various parts of the manufacturing process worked. Visitors to the museum could press a variety of buttons throughout the showroom floor to activate these exhibits, which I have several videos to show you below.
One of the last exhibits visitors see on the floor is giant robotic arms that show how cars were assembled on the factory floor. The whole process to assemble the car takes around a minute and a half--very quick and very cool.
At the end of the museum, visitors get to see the painting process for cars. The different samples above showed the difference between a human's handiwork versus a robot's. It is hard to tell in the photo, but my fiancé and I thought the humans did a better job honestly.
I somehow didn't get a video of it, but there is also an option to press a button and watch how a robot paints a car. We wondered how many coats of paint are on that poor car body!
Of course, despite what I said earlier, there were a few signs that still were not properly translated, but of course you see signs with improper grammar here in the states all the time too! I thought the two previous photos/signs were funny so I snapped pictures of them.
Now that we have done a short virtual tour, let me give you some background on the museum itself.
From what I can tell from the museum's website, the first plans to open a Toyota Museum were laid out in 1988, but the museum itself would not open until 1994--as a 100th birthday celebration for Toyota's founder, Kiichiro Toyoda.
Another thing about the museum that I personally didn't get to experience was the large amount of things for kids to do. From what I can tell, there are multiple different exhibitions and areas specifically designed for kids, one of which is called Technoland, which combines the museum's two main focuses, textiles and automobiles, into one interactive experience for younger generations.
There isn't much in the way of history about the museums readily available online--at least not in English anyway, but it is still worth checking out if you ever find yourself in Nagoya, Japan