Toyota Opens Technical Center in the Belly of the Beast (MI)

by Robert Farago

Published: October 9th, 2008

Not the best metaphor for a writer (or reader) who’s feeling a bit thick-headed this AM (although I have to say, Jay, that Coppola’s Director’s Cut chardonnay is wicked pissa). Anyway… first we had Honda’s robot playing violin for the Grosse Pointe gadflies at the symphony hall. Now Toyota is expanding– as in opening not closing– a new facility in York Township. Toyota’s press release re: their new Toyota Technical Center (TTC) is full of gloating, snickering and sneering. Not. But it does feature some of the same characters we last saw sticking their noses in the federal taxpayers’ trough, rooting for bailout billions on behalf of ToMoCo’s competitors. Yes, Shigeki Terashi, TTC president, “celebrated the grand opening of its new engineering and safety testing facilities here today with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Congressman John Dingell, as well as several hundred government officials, community leaders, suppliers and Toyota team members.” Those team members will now be “engaged in engineering design, prototype building, vehicle evaluation and engineering, materials engineering, powertrain tuning and design, regulatory affairs and advanced technical research. TTC has developed the Avalon, Sienna, Solara, Tundra and Venza vehicles for the North American market.” Now what?

toyota opens technical center in the belly of the beast mi

Robert Farago

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2 of 8 comments

Casper00 on Oct 09, 2008

perfect, now if they can only bring back the Supra and the turbo-charge Mr2.

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Psarhjinian on Oct 09, 2008
perfect, now if they can only bring back the Supra and the turbo-charge Mr2. Sadly, this is exactly the wrong time. If you're lucky, you might get the Aygo and the Camry wagon.

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