When Toyota opened its first North American manufacturing plant here in 1972, the automaker was just a bit player in the United States, grossly overshadowed by the Big Three and even foreign competitors like Volkswagen, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports.
The factory sat on 28.2 acres of nondescript land nestled between two oil refineries just south of the Artesia (91) Freeway.
The Toyota factory was the type of unremarkable place that to this day goes unnoticed.
But while the TABC plant, named after the long-abandoned acronym Toyota Auto Body California, may have been underwhelming in size and output, it served as a foothold in the U.S. auto market.
From those humble beginnings 35 years ago, the Japanese automaker slowly expanded its American manufacturing empire to 14 plants and nearly 2 million vehicles.
Looking back, a great deal of the company’s American success can be traced to its Long Beach roots.
