Chairman Toyoda

Ladies and Gentlemen, I deeply regret that I cannot be with you to receive this award in person.

It is a tremendous honor to be given a lifetime achievement award by members of the European automotive industry. Honestly, I feel like I’m back in high school and I just got asked to hang out with the cool kids! That’s how big a deal this is to me!

But seriously, I have loved cars for as long as I can remember. As a little kid, the only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a taxi driver.

My dream didn’t exactly come true but pretty close.

And this award is honestly another dream come true for me.

Toyota is about to celebrate its 100th year anniversary, not as a car company, but as the inventor of the world’s first automatic loom.

That’s right, we began by weaving fabric and it would be my grandfather Kiichiro, who would have the courage to roll the dice and turn our family business into Japan’s first automotive manufacturer.

Little did he know then, how well it would work out.

Years later, when I became president of Toyota, I decided that if I really wanted to improve our cars, I needed to improve my skills as a driver.

I wasn’t an engineer, but I wanted to be able to understand our cars well enough to communicate with them.

I began training with Toyota’s master driver who brought me to Nürburgring for the very first time in 2007.

It was love at first sight.

The sounds… the smells… the schnitzel! And most of all… the cars… those beautiful, fantastic German cars!

I remember being a little embarrassed about the fact that here I was, at the world-famous Nürburgring driving a used Toyota Supra.

I also remember that during my very first lap around the green hell as these powerful European cars sped past me, I thought two things…

One, am I going to die? And two, I really need to come back here with a better car!

So the next year, I returned with the prototype of the Lexus LFA.

And I’ve been coming back to Nürburgring ever since in my role as Master Driver for Toyota and Lexus.

To me, it’s my home away from home.

What we’ve learned by racing at Nürburgring has greatly influenced all of our products, and I’m especially proud of our GAZOO Racing brand of performance vehicles.

But here’s what I’m equally proud of: the opportunity to be part of this amazing industry and the opportunity to work with so many amazing partners like Mercedes, Daimler Truck, and BMW.

I think we can all agree that this is a challenging time for our industry, and I believe we need to reach out to each other and work together, now more than ever. I believe we have a responsibility to use our collective resources to help make people’s lives better.

As Toyota looks to the future, to new forms of mobility, one thing that will never change is our love of cars.

I’m deeply humbled to receive this award, and I wanted to thank Mathias Dopfner*, the organizers and the jury for recognizing not just the cars that we build, but the dedication and passion that I share with the 383,000 members of our Toyota team around the world.
^{*The CEO of Axel Springer, a major German media company. Auto Bild and Bild am Sonntag are also publications under the Axel Springer Group.}

And finally, I would like to thank our customers. They are the ones who truly inspire us, and without them, I wouldn’t be standing here today.

So, once again, thank you for this honor, and I hope to see all of you at next year’s 24 hours at Nürburgring!

Because personally, I wouldn’t miss it for the world! Thank you very much!