Corolla geek meets the Corolla master

Dating back to when my family first owned a Corolla, I’ve been riding in and driving Corolla cars for roughly 30 years, during which I’ve owned 10 Corolla sedans (including one Corolla Ceres). So others see me not just as a Toyota or Corolla fan, but a real “Corolla obsessive.” Now I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to talk to Toyota’s representative, the “Corolla master”, Shinji Ohira, who has been dedicated to developing successive generations of Corolla models for the past 38 years. This is definitely the highlight of my career as a freelance writer.

Since transferring from the Prototype Division to the Product Planning Division in 1977, Mr. Ohira worked solely on developing the Corolla until 2015. He joined the development team from around the launch of the fourth generation Corolla (sedan), which incidentally, was my first Corolla - the first car I drove after getting my driver’s license. So I’ll now share some of the highlights of my chat with Mr. Ohira, mainly about the fourth generation Corolla.

While I was delighted to have the chance to meet Mr. Ohira, I was also a little anxious about it. I was worried that he would listen to my views of successive Corollas, which are nothing more than arbitrary assumptions, and then tell me, “Well, that’s not quite right….”

But once we started talking, I realized that there weren’t any vast differences between Mr. Ohira’s views on the Corolla as one of its engineers, and my views of it as a user (geek). For instance, we were mostly in agreement on what the standout Corolla models are within its successive generations.

Although I may be somewhat of an eccentric when it comes to cars, I’m just another Corolla driver. And when I really think about it, the reason I’ve continued to drive a Corolla for the past 30 years is most likely because what the engineers are aiming for, and my ideas of what I want in a car are largely in sync. The engineers have been able to clearly convey their intentions to the users in each model, probably because they really understand the needs of Corolla drivers, and are working day and night to develop new models.

After I started working in the automobile-related media, and learned that until the fourth generation Corolla had debuted, four round lamp-style headlights were a special fitting that could even be said to denote a “luxury vehicle,” while two round lamp-style headlights were the norm for an affordable car, such as the Corolla class. According to Mr. Ohira though, right from the start the developers decided to use four round lamp-style headlights in the fourth generation Corolla to create an impact, as well as to add a sense of luxury. Even though two round lamp-style headlights were the standard grade for cars in the 60s, the fact that there was also a model featuring four round lamp-style headlights as a luxury fitting showed just how special a feature it was.

I recalled my father saying that he couldn’t fit the vehicle inspection certificate folder in the glove box, so he stuffed it into the car’s trunk instead. Nevertheless, it seems that the developers collected these folders from Corolla dealerships nationwide, and developed the car while checking if the folder could actually fit in the glove box.

In my family’s case, the vehicle inspection certificate folder we received from our Corolla dealership was by chance quite large, and not the same size as the folder used during the test drive, which is why it wouldn’t fit in the glove box.

Mr. Ohira then told me that Toyota set a standard size for the vehicle inspection certificate folder used in the glove box capacity test during the Corolla’s development, so that all Toyota dealerships across Japan would use a uniform-sized folder. For many years, I was convinced that the reason why the vehicle inspection certificate folder didn’t fit in the glove box is because it was designed overseas. So I was really glad to have that misconception corrected, and realized once again about the detailed work that went into developing the new Corolla, to the point that Toyota thoroughly checked if the vehicle inspection certificate folder could fit in the glove box.

Although this time I’ve only written about aspects of the fourth-generation Corolla that I asked about, Mr. Ohira also shared with me various detailed features and fittings of other generations of Corollas. He was able to immediately answer any question on the finest details of all Corolla models in any generation. This was both surprising, but also expected, as he truly fits his title as the “Corolla master”.

Each generation of the Corolla has been developed by also reflecting the views of its users, of course. So someone like Mr. Ohira, who has worked on the development of successive models, provides advice that is sprinkled like a spice on the views of users, which is then blended together to bring out the “flavor” of the car, and to improve the performance of each new model.

What has given me joy as a long-time Corolla driver is not so much the major technical advancements in each new model, but rather the moment I realize that the minor complaints I had with older models have been resolved by minor adjustments or full model changes.

Before I met Mr. Ohira, I was curious about what kind of person a Corolla master is. However, after actually meeting with him and talking to him briefly, I understood that it’s because people like Mr. Ohira have been a part of the development team that the Corolla has remained at the core of Toyota’s lineup for 50 years. Developing new cars from the user’s perspective is definitely not as easy as it sounds, but as I talked to Mr. Ohira, I could tell that he was a true craftsman, who really understands what drivers want in a car.

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