One year into its Nascar Sprint Cup experiment, Toyota took new driver Kyle Busch on a tour of its offices and plants. Not in Honshu or Hokkaido, but rather California, Texas and Kentucky.
"They showed us just how American the company is," said Busch, who last week drove his No. 18 Camry to the Sprint Cup Series championship — the biggest victory for Busch in his 11- year racing career and the biggest Nascar achievement for Toyota Motor Corp., too.
For nine years the Japanese auto company has been delivering that same message to a much tougher audience, and Nascar fans are growing more receptive. Two out of three now say they'd consider buying a Toyota, roughly on par with the sport's domestic sponsors like Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet — and double the number who said they would when the carmaker joined the cup series in 2007. From 2011 to 2014, the company also saw its biggest market-share gains in Nascar's traditional strongholds, according to research firm IHS Automotive.