Uncovering Toyota’s Innovations: A Tour of the Commemorative Museum in Nagoya
Hey, it’s Maximo and welcome to Maximo’s Travels. I’m touring around Nagoya, Japan, and I’ve gone to a very unique museum, the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, or the Toyota Techno Museum for short. Toyota started life as a textile equipment manufacturer, and the museums located one of Toyota’s first textile factories built in the early 1900s. The textile pavilion features hundreds of different textile machines, and the automotive pavilion features cars that date back to the early 1930s, as well as huge hydraulic stamping machines and robotics that are involved in the manufacturer of Toyota cars today. Join me as I explore the Toyota Techno Museum in Nagoya, Japan. [Music] We arrived in Nagoya in the early afternoon of a Saturday. We only had two nights in Nagoya and one of the things that we definitely wanted to visit was the Toyota Technology Museum. It is more formally known as the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology. The museum is located a reasonable walk away from Nagoya station. It’s around 1.3 kilometers away and took us around 20 minutes to walk there from Nagoya station. You can also take the bus from the Goya station. The museum opened in 1994 and it showcases the history of Toyota. Toyota started off making textiles and fabrics and the museum is housed in one of the original red brick textile factories that dates back to 1911. The original factory site is huge covering over 41,000 square m. There’s a number of buildings at the site and the total floor area is over 26,000 square meters. The museum attracts a lot of visitors with over 400,000 attending each year and a total of 7.5 million since it opened in 1994. It cost a,000 yen to enter the museum or around about 10 Australian dollars. This is a textile machine. Toyota started their life off producing textiles and then moved on to cars and other things and became the global conglomerate that it is today. And this is a scale model of this factory area and as you can see the area is absolutely huge. Toyota Industries started life in 1905 making and inventing the power loom. It still makes looms today, including millions of cars, forklifts, and other types of machinery. It only started making cars in 1937. An automatic loom dating back to 1924. An older one dating from 18 96. I went to this museum expecting to see just cars, but the textile museum was hugely impressive. Some of the exhibits were also tactile and interactive. And you could turn the wheel around and see the effects on the spinning machine. It really was quite fascinating. [Music] We kept walking through the huge covered building. There must have been hundreds of different machines here. [Applause] Monster. [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Music] I couldn’t [Music] Nice. foreign. [Music] Oh my god. [Applause] There were just so many different industrial and textile machines here. And what I found fascinating was that all of them were in perfect working order. And Joe was particularly impressed with this part of the museum. If you’re enjoying this video, then hit that like button and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel. If you want to be notified of all my future videos, hit that notify bell. If you’d like to see more videos like this, then consider supporting my channel by buying me a coffee. We finished at the textile museum and then headed to the automobile pavilion. Our first stop was the engine shop and it is a pity that all the commentary was in Japanese. [Music] You can really tell that a hell of a lot of money has been spent renovating this more than century old red brick factory. A walkway led us to an education center that showcased various Toyota industries technologies including robotics. Beyond the education center was a series of small halls that showcase different Toyota technologies including small engines, bicycles, precision weights and scales as well as other assorted technologies. Toyota even made microscopes [Music] to body from 1935. This place is enormous. [Music] This is a Toyo Pet Crown from 1955. [Music] It was great to see some of those old Toyota models. Some of the models I remember from my childhood and my youth in the 1960s and 1970s. And yes, I am showing my age. It also reminded me of my visits to the Toyota and General Motors Holden factories whilst working for an automotive parts manufacturer in the early 2000s. And I’m really glad I didn’t work in one of these factories. It was awfully awfully noisy and I’d be deafer than I currently am today. [Music] And the displays of robotic manufacturing were simply mesmerizing. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Fire [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Wow. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I’m going to go with the Those heavy stamping machines and robotic machines were absolutely enthralling. Both Joe and I agree that this is one of the best museums we’ve ever been to. And that’s really saying something as I’ve worked in the automotive industry previously, and Joe has worked for Rolls-Royce at the aircraft engine manufacturing factory located on the outskirts of London. In addition to all the machinery and the historical Toyota cars, there also quite a few prototypes and concept cars on display. The Toyota Techno Museum is such a huge entertaining and educational facility, and the extensive textile exhibits were both welcomed and unexpected. We left the museum right on closing time at about 5:00 p.m. We’d spent about 2 hours here, and we thought we were a little bit rushed. We could easily have spent another hour to an hour and a half here comfortably. If you’re touring Nagoya, I would definitely put this museum on my to-do list. So that’s bye for now and I’ll see you on the next video in Nagoya.
Step inside the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya, Japan, and discover how this iconic brand evolved from weaving looms to building world-class cars! 🇯🇵🚗
In this video, we explore:
✨ The fascinating origins of Toyota, starting as a textile machinery company.
✨ Incredible demonstrations of historic weaving machines in action.
✨ The transition from textiles to automobiles — showcasing Toyota’s early engineering breakthroughs.
✨ Displays of classic Toyota vehicles, engines, and robotics that highlight Japan’s innovation journey.
✨ Why this museum is a must-visit in Nagoya for car enthusiasts, engineers, and travelers alike.
This museum is not just about cars — it’s about Japanese innovation, craftsmanship, and history. Whether you’re a Toyota fan or just curious about how Japan became a global tech leader, this tour will fascinate you.
The Museum is open from 09:30 – 17:00 & Closed Mondays. Entry is ¥1,000 or around AUD $10.
#ToyotaMuseum #JapanTravel #Nagoya #Toyota #AutomotiveHistory #HiddenJapan
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Links:
– https://www.nagoya-info.jp/en/
– https://www.instagram.com/nagoya_info_en
– https://www.nagoyajo.city.nagoya.jp/
– https://www.tcmit.org/
– https://www.instagram.com/toyota/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:05 Details, History & Cost
02:28 Textile Pavilion
06:51 Automotive Pavilion
14:21 Summary & Outro
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