Only three Century are collected daily
Toyota’s newest luxury car, the Century Toyota, is meticulously handcrafted by a team of 40 skilled workers selected from a workforce of 1,500. To secure a place on the team, these workers had to successfully pass a rigorous exam.
Hiroki Tanaka, one of the workers selected for the team, was required to complete a mandatory training course and successfully pass a certification exam. The exam consisted of three modules: an initial assessment of basic skills, a written test covering the history of the Century, vehicle design and related topics, and a practical exam designed to demonstrate skills in creating a luxury series.
“The written exam was harder than the practical exam, with 200 questions, but I aced it by working hard on my textbooks for the first time since I was a student,” he told Toyota Times. — I learned a lot of new things: from the history of Toyota and Century to unique technologies for manufacturing high-quality cars. It was an invaluable experience.”
The 35-year-old assembler, a graduate of the Technical Skills Academy, has been with Toyota since 2007. He says he was very excited to immediately start working on the Land Cruiser line because it was his dream car. He installs the suspension components on the Century.
Toyota technicians spend 12 times longer tightening Century bolts than on other vehicles.
Precision is always a big focus for Toyota, but the luxurious Century puts extra emphasis on it. “On every assembly line except Century, every nut or bolt is tightened in one pass using a fastening tool,” Tanaka said. “However, on the Century assembly line, strict precision requirements mean that we first use a hand-tightening fixture and then re-tighten with a fastening tool to get closer to the target torque. Finally, we use a digital torque wrench whose torque values are fed into computers and work manually to arrive at the final value.”
In practice, a worker can spend up to a minute tightening larger parts, which is 12 times longer than the five seconds it takes workers to tighten nuts and bolts on other vehicles. At the same time, Toyota produces only three copies of the Century per day.
On the Century assembly line, these carefully selected workers are divided into four specialized sections:
- trim, responsible for controlling components such as dashboards and roofs;
- the chassis, responsible for mounting the engine, suspension and battery integration of the PHEV;
- final assembly including seats, doors and windows;
- “tuning/fluids” that control tasks such as engine coolant and brake systems.
