Description

Description

The Toyota Museum, opened in 1989 as part of Toyota Motor Corporation's 50th anniversary celebrations, is an automobile museum dedicated to the history of the development of the automobile around the world. It differs from other car manufacturers' museums and archives in that it focuses not only on its own collection, but also on collecting vehicles of national and international importance in the history of the petrol car, with some 140 vehicles currently on display. All of these items are preserved on the basis of dynamic preservation, and maintenance records, vehicle start-up procedures and driving videos are also stored as primary museum materials. The museum's non-vehicle holdings include approximately 10,000 items of automobile-related cultural materials such as paintings, posters, miniature cars and car mascots, as well as a wide range of books (approximately 11,000 volumes), magazines (approximately 3,500 volumes), catalogues (approximately 96,000 volumes) and audio-visual materials (approximately 250 items).
The museum, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2019, has been renovating the museum in stages since 2015. The renewal of the main building was completed by January 2017, and the permanent exhibition, which had previously been separated into European and American cars (2nd floor) and Japanese cars (3rd floor), was reorganised into two sections: "The history of the birth of Japanese cars from the dawn of the automobile (1886-1950)" (2nd floor) and "The progress and diversification of motorisation (1950 - present day)" (2nd floor). The exhibition has been completely redesigned. Representative vehicles from Japan, Europe and the USA are arranged in zones separated by era, and the exhibition systematically shows how manufacturers influenced each other and built up the styles of their era. In addition, a new cultural exhibition area was created in the north exhibition hall on the second floor of the new building, which opened to the public in 2019, showcasing a collection of books, posters and other items related to cars.
For this interview, we spoke to the museum about both the archives collected by the Toyota Museum related to the Japanese automobile industry and its own archives as Toyota Motor Corporation（Postscript, June 2022）.

Interview

Interview

It is important to discover stories from various angles and utilize them in the exhibition.

Maintenance and issues for dynamic preservation

―　The Toyota Museum collects a wide variety of vehicles from Japan and overseas, but how many do you have in your collection?

Hamada　Currently, we have about 540 units. Of these, about 140 are on display, about 80 are in the backyard, and the rest are stored in a warehouse in the plant.

―　Are you collecting and preserving archives from the perspective of car design?

Hamada　 Although we are not actively doing this as a museum, we collect documents, catalogues, posters and paintings relating to cars, and as a result we believe that our collection includes material relating to design. We also believe it is necessary to identify and record whose designs they are.

―　I understand that almost all of your vehicles are preserved in motion, but how are they maintained?

Hamada　Seven mechanics are involved in maintenance, and it takes about four years to complete a cycle of vehicles in the collection: after four years of inactivity, the brakes stick or petrol clogs the carburettors, so the parts are replaced, the operation is checked and the vehicles are stored. I repeat this process every time.
However, the difficulty is that replacing parts to make them work is also an act of destroying the original. The Agency for Cultural Affairs does not have a concept of dynamic preservation, and the basic idea is that we should make our own replicas of the objects that we really want to move, but we are not able to go that far. It has been almost 30 years since the museum opened, so it is time to rethink the future of dynamic preservation. However, a car is only valuable if it works. The sound of the engine and the way the car drives are all part of the car's value, so we deceptively keep the car running and maintain it while keeping an eye on the conditions and considering the extent to which repairs should be carried out.

―　Is it technically difficult to maintain an older car?

Hamada　Old products work even if they are left alone for about 10 years. Metal parts can be made by machining, and recently some resin parts can be made using 3D printers, so this is no longer such a problem. So the 2000GT will probably still be running 50 years from now. In fact, modern cars with a lot of electronic parts are more troublesome, so the issue is how to preserve cars with advanced electronics.

Collecting and organising the archives as Toyota Motor Corporation

―　Are Toyota vehicles collected and managed separately?

Hamada　The Toyota Museum was originally established as a place to learn about the development of the automobile around the world, and we have never collected Toyota cars from the perspective of their history. We were strictly told not to treat Toyota cars specially, and until recently we did not collect much of our own collection.
For example, Toyota's first car, the Toyoda AA, is the symbol of this museum, but it is actually a replica. According to photographic materials, it was still there until the 1960s, but someone destroyed it after that. That's how little awareness there was of archiving. Currently, we are trying to collect the necessary items for the Toyota Motor Corporation archives, separate from the Toyota Museum collection.

―　Does that mean that you collect everything, from the past to the present?

Hamada　We would like to collect items from the past as well, but we have a tight budget, so at the very least we are trying to preserve only the most important modern vehicles from the exhibits at Toyota Kaikan(＊1). In addition, the Design Division is collecting oral histories by interviewing people involved. More and more of our former employees are passing away, and it is very important to identify and record whose designs are being used. For example, it is said, somewhat of an urban legend, that the Toyota 2000GT was designed by Albrecht von Goertz, but this must be refuted by Satoru Nozaki.

―　Isn't it difficult to identify the developer of the old design?

Hamada　It's easy to identify cars from the early days. Rather, it's more difficult with newer models. These days, we work as a team, and the people in charge of coming up with ideas and commercializing them are different. As for renderings, sketches, and other materials, I try to keep all the modern data. Things from the days of handwriting deteriorate, and the colors shift and become crumpled, but the latest stuff is relatively well preserved. However, since the recording media for data will probably change after 10 years, we cannot rest assured. For example, even now, when the data of the floppy disk comes out, it is hopeless.

Valuable materials found in OB's home

―　Do you keep the materials you collect for future development or for public viewing in a museum?

Hamada　I didn't think that far ahead, but there was a pile of material that only retired people could understand, so I started this project to preserve it in a proper form. However, it's not really a priority for me, so I'm just doing it in bits and pieces.
Recently, relatives of former employees who have passed away often bring us materials that they have kept at home. The same thing happened when we restored a concept car called the "Publica Sport" that was exhibited at the 1962 Tokyo Motor Show. The project was originally started by a group of volunteers, including Kazuo Morohoshi, a retired Toyota designer, who drew up the plans based on a few photographs, but when the person who was in charge of development at Kanto Auto Works (now Toyota Motor East Japan) searched his office and home, he found drawings and other materials from that time. I was able to find drawings and other materials from that time.

―　That's impossible nowadays.

Hamada　That's right. In the old days, people thought that if they left things at work, they would be thrown away, so they took important things home with them.

Archives as a leading manufacturer in the industry

―　Manufacturers have a huge number of products, so archiving them can be a daunting task.

Hamada　In the case of car manufacturers, thanks to the magazine "Car Styling", they are in a way archived there. There are also articles on new cars from manufacturers all over the world on the internet site "Car Design News".
Toyota's development documents are not kept in a museum, but in each division, so design data and other materials are kept in the Technical Management Department. However, there are still quite a few old materials, so the question is what to do with them.
Other than that, there is the company history compiled by the archives group: we published the 75-year history in 2012, and the next one will be the 100-year history, so we are now creating a system to store the records. We also keep information separately that cannot be written in the company history.

―　In the case of Toyota Motor Corporation, it's not just the history of one company, but it's directly connected to the industrial history of Japan, so each record is very important. The Toyota Museum is also fulfilling its responsibility as a company that represents the industry by enriching its collection with items other than its own.

Hamada　It's the same in other industries as well. For example, Takenaka Corporation has the Takenaka Carpenter's Tool Museum and Toppan Printing has the Printing Museum. All the leading companies in the industry have important items in their collections and exhibits that represent not only their own history but also the history of the industry as a whole.

A place to transmit historical evaluations of Japanese cars

―　The Toyota Museum is undergoing a major renovation in preparation for its 30th anniversary in 2019.

Hamada　The new building has just undergone refurbishment and will be closed until spring 2019. The museum plans to focus on cultural material derived from the car, such as posters, tintypes, miniature cars, etc. Meanwhile, the main museum was renovated in January this year (2017). Before the renovation, the second floor was divided into European and American cars and the third floor into Japanese cars, but this is now outdated, so everything has been shuffled around and the second floor is now divided into two sections:"The history of Japanese cars from the dawn of the automobile (1886-1950)"and "The development and diversification of motorisation (1950 to the present day)" on the third floor.
Here, we are particularly keen to demonstrate the world-leading practices of the Japanese automobile industry. Examples include Honda's Civic, which was the first car in the world to pass the Muskie Act (＊2), Subaru's Leone, which popularised four-wheel drive in mass-produced passenger cars, and the Prius, which popularised hybrid vehicles. The Prius, in particular, changed the direction of automobile evolution, and I would like to give it a proper historical review.
No museum in the world takes this up. No other museum in the world will take up these things. We are asking for the cooperation of all the companies, as this is something that can only be communicated here. We have recently been given a Subaru Leone Estate Van 4WD, which was on display at the Subaru Visitor Centre, on loan indefinitely.

Exhibition on the theme of design

―　You had a design-themed exhibition in 2014 called "The Streamlined Era and Cars"; do you have any plans to hold more design-themed exhibitions in the future?

Hamada　I'm hoping to do a project soon that looks back at the era of tailfins. I feel that recent car designs are rather rich in design, so I thought there might be some hints that could lead us to the current era. In the 50's when tail fins were popular, the wings grew longer and longer as if they were competing with each other. Then, when they passed a certain peak, they suddenly came to a halt. And then, just as the peak was reached, the Mini appeared in England. I'm thinking of a project with a story like that.

―　That's very interesting. How often do you change the contents of your exhibitions?

Hamada　We have one large exhibition for children in the summer, and other smaller exhibitions twice a year. Permanent exhibitions are held about once every six months. We replace five to six vehicles on display every two years.

―　When we talk to people in this research project of the Design Archive, we come across the problem of not having enough space to store the actual objects. How about you? How many cars do you collect each year?

Hamada　We still have a lot of cars we want to collect, but some of them are donated to us because we have a tight budget. Every year we buy one or two cars, five or six are donated and one or two are restored. As for storage space, we now have a fairly large area in the factory. At one time there was not enough space, so we had to have them displayed in the visitor centres at each factory to make up the space.

Uncover the story behind the design

―　Do you plan to use this museum for education or study sessions on design at Toyota Motor Corporation?

Hamada　Of course, new employees and even mid-career employees do this, and we also have them use it as a source of ideas when developing new vehicles. In addition to Toyota, we sometimes have related manufacturers and other companies such as Nissan and Honda participate.

―　What do you think is the most important thing about the Toyota Museum from the perspective of a design archive?

Hamada　 That's a difficult question. First of all, we can't start anything without the objects, so I think the first priority is to preserve the actual objects. Then, I think it is important to discover interesting stories about each object and explain them. In the case of automobiles, there is a very interesting story about the paint alone.
For example, the black paint on the Model T Ford is called "japan Black". The word "japan" refers to lacquer. At that time, there was no glossy black paint in Europe and the United States, so lacquer was a color that people longed for. We tried to reproduce that color somehow, and the name of the paint we used became "japan Black. The accelerator pedal was in a different position for each designer, as early cars did not have a fixed driving style, and the driver's seat was on the right side, a remnant from the days of the horse-drawn carriages. The shape of the car can be viewed in a different way by looking at it with an explanation of the technology, history and culture of the time behind its design, such as the fact that Henry Ford changed the steering wheel to the left so that the woman in the passenger seat could safely get off the car on the pavement.
This is something that most people, even designers with a high level of design literacy, don't understand unless they hear about it, so I think it's important to uncover stories from different perspectives and use them in the exhibition.

―　When the new building reopens, I'm sure there will be even more stories to uncover. I hope to hear more stories from you at that time. Thank you very much for your time today.

(Notes.)

＊1　Toyota Kaikan: A corporate museum established in 1977 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the company's founding. In addition to exhibiting the latest models, the museum has exhibits that introduce the company's approach to manufacturing and the latest related technologies.

＊2　 Muskie Act: An air pollution control law enacted in the United States in 1970. Honda's Civic CVCC cleared the standard, which many automakers around the world had written off as unfeasible, showing the world the technological prowess of Japanese cars.

Enquiry:

Toyota Museum

https://www.toyota.co.jp/Museum