Thumbs up! Toyota chair Akio 'Morizo' Toyoda all smiles in Honda HR-V hybrid

Toyota Motor Company chair Akio Toyoda is perhaps one of the most charismatic automotive executives in recent memory.

The 67-year-old scion of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda impressed Filipinos with his immense driving talent during the Toyota GAZOO Racing (GR) Festival on August 2023 at the Quirino Grandstand.

A keen racer (using the name "Morizo"), Toyoda was also a development driver for Toyota’s high-performance vehicles like the Toyota GR Yaris. But in a recent video posted on X (formerly Twitter), he was in something less heart-pounding.

All smiles

On Toyota’s official X account, Toyoda is seen pulling up to the camera in a car produced by rival Japanese carmaker Honda.

He gives a big smile and a thumbs-up while behind the wheel of a Honda Vezel e:HEV, which is the hybrid version of the Japanese-market Honda HR-V. Looking on in the passenger seat is four-time World Rally champion Juha Kankkunen, who formerly raced with Toyota.

The Vezel e:HEV is powered by a 1.5-liter, twin-cam, 16-valve inline-4 gasoline engine mated to an electric motor. The combined output is 131 PS, which is coursed through a continuously variable transmission.

It competes directly with Toyota’s own C-HR subcompact crossover, which is available with either hybrid or plug-in hybrid powertrains.

The 13-second video ends with the two driving off and Honda’s slogan “The Power of Dreams” in bold letters.

Friendly rivalry

Toyota and Honda have maintained a cordial relationship of sorts, according to our friends from sister publication WapCar.

At the 60th anniversary of Suzuka Circuit, which is owned by Honda, then-company president Toyoda relayed a video message to Honda fans gathered at the track. 

He said his love for cars can be traced back to when his father took the seven-year-old Toyoda to watch the first-ever Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

“Suzuka is a really challenging course,” he said. “Nowhere else am I so afraid to step on the gas. It feels as though the course’s creator, Soichiro Honda, is telling me, ‘You’ve still got a long way to go.’”

Toyoda was referring to the late legendary Japanese engineer, racer and industrialist Soichiro Honda, who founded the Honda Motor Company in 1948.

At the Toyota Motorsports Museum at the Fuji Speedway, there is a corner where the company pays tribute to Honda-san.

Make racing exciting

Although Toyota and Honda are not cooperating on any commercial product development, the two powerhouse firms are working together on the Japan-only NEXT50 motorsports project.

The aim is to revive the dwindling viewership of the Super Formula open-wheel racing series, where Honda is an engine supplier.

Toyota and Honda engineers are now working together to make the race more exciting, along with reducing costs for participating teams. Both teams’ race cars carry each other’s logos.

Wouldn’t the world be nicer if globalized neoliberal capitalism were less antagonistic?

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