Toyota took over a Napalm factory in Long Beach to produce truck beds and avoid the chicken load – Jalopnik

The chicken tax was the most famous rate of the car industry, at least until President Donald Trump uselessly started to make the rates on everything. The chicken tax started like one Actually Mutual rate when Europe imposed an input tax in 1963 on American chickens, which caused a loss of 25% business activities for the export of American chickens. In retaliation, the US government has added imported trucks to the list of imported goods that confronts an import rate of 25%, exploding the prices of imported trucks and not competing by American trucks. To bypass the rate, Toyota took over a former Napalm factory in the port city of Long Beach, California to produce beds that could be bolted on unfinished hi-luxes that were imported with a cabin, motor and chassis, causing them to qualify as an imported vehicles, not as trucks.

Hagerty published a sensational article I had to write about this automotive history factoid, and as a resident of Long Beach who never knew this tradition. The original article Is very detailed and I beg you to read it.

The factory that Toyota took over was occupied by Diamantplastics in the 1960s, and one of the products produced was the fire pants used in VLAM pitchers and fire bombs in the war in Vietnam, known as Napalm. Dealing with such a volatile connection resulted in three reported explosions in the factory, which was near a neighborhood. It is not surprising that the adjacent residents were not enthusiastic about the production of Napalm in their backyard, and they protested against it, but in the end Diamanten Plastic lost his contract in the Atlas Manufacturer Factory and Toyota locked up the facility to produce truck beds.

Since Toyota imported incomplete vehicles instead of trucks, the rolling CAB and Chassis were only subject to an import load of 2.5% instead of the load of 25% that influenced the imported trucks. After Atlas manufacturers had produced the truck beds, Toyota would shot the beds on the frames and qualify the trucks as their last meeting in the United States. Er waren 15 andere Amerikaanse leveranciers die in 1972 vrachtwagenbedden voor Toyota produceerden, en in 1974 nam Toyota Atlas -fabrikanten over en hernoemde het Long Beach -fabrikanten, later hernoemd naar de productie van Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA, en uiteindelijk hernoemde het de faciliteit als Toyota Auto Body California sinds de faciliteit niet echt auto’s produceerde, het vervaardigde gewoon Trucks.

Toyota

Toyota Auto Body California is still in use today in Long Beach, California, and it is the primary producer of parts for Toyota Tacomas and for the past model parts. It was the first production facility of Toyota in North America and it remains the longest-running North American factory of the company. To read about even more exciting details of the history of the plant, Read the Hagerty article here.