Since I began watching Toyota’s woes unfold about a month ago, I couldn’t help but notice the evident parallels between Toyota and General Motors.  As an avid follower of the industry, the recent string of bad news stemming from Japan’s automotive poster child didn’t necessarily surprise me.  Toyota has been in a relentless pursuit of world-domination for quite some time now.  Unlike GM, however, Toyota’s obsession with unrestrained growth and rise to the top was rather brisk and admittedly daunting.  While it hasn’t necessarily bottomed out the way GM has, and for all intensive purpose won’t, it is still worth noting that Toyota’s reputation as a quality leader and indisputable benchmark in the industry has been severely tarnished in the process of this fiasco.

Much like GM, Toyota allowed their absurd ambition, to be number one, cloud their judgment.  At the same time, it inadvertently forced those at the top within Toyota to shift their focus away from impeccable quality control and unrivaled customer service and instead towards toppling GM and the rest of the industry in terms of dominating worldwide auto sales.  It was no longer about the customer but instead it became solely about becoming number one.  Instead of looking ahead in continuing to develop new, advanced technologies and designs, Toyota was caught looking over their shoulder as it tried to vehemently to pass GM with blinders on.  While General Motors was an arrogant behemoth for roughly three decades; Toyota only had the luxury of one decade.  And now, of course, the damage control begins as Toyota execs begin to realize how blinding the spotlight of criticism and bad press can be after years of enjoying the their status as the undeniable media darling.

I’ll hesitantly admit that this whole ignominy has been severely overblown by the media and the political grandstanding during the congressional hearings, with Mr. Toyoda himself taking the beating, was pathetic and jaded rhetoric at best.  I am careful to recognize the crap General Motors put many Americans through for decades in terms of building low-quality, unsafe automobiles which squandered their reputation, but, I would be lying if I said I didn’t somewhat enjoy all of this.  In the end, while it takes decades-upon-decades to build a built-proof reputation like Toyota’s, it takes only a month and a few million recalls worldwide to dissipate such a loyal following.  In the meantime, I’ll continue to watch companies like Ford take advantage of the changing tide in the automobile industry and I’ll quietly sit back and smile and think to myself  “I told you so.”