Toyota in Canada : 60 years, 60 pictures from coast to coast (Part 1)
Last August, Toyota embarked on a slightly deranged road trip, crossing Canada from coast to coast, to celebrate its 60th year on Canadian soil. 60 years since the company launched its activities here, in a very modest way, need we remind you. To mark the occasion, Toyota had a bunch of us cross the country in its vehicles.
See also: Toyota Canada Turns 60: From Coast to Coast We Go
The mega-road trip was divided into six stages or waves. What began in St. John's, Newfoundland, ended in Victoria, British Columbia some five weeks later. Along the way there were stops in Halifax, Montreal, North Bay, Winnipeg and Calgary, not to mention Quebec City, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Vancouver, among others.
Each of the six waves had its own select group of journalists to propel the vehicles westward. Due to a combination of circumstances, Auto123 found itself on three of the six waves, meaning we covered half of Canada in Toyota vehicles.
Your humble servant took part in the first stage (St. John's to Halifax), as well as stages 3 and 4, which spanned Montreal to Winnipeg.
As you can guess, it was a memorable trip, with targeted and strategic stops, here to visit a standout dealership, there to a place that was important in Toyota's history, or else a point of interest along the way.
How can we sum it all up for you, without boring you, and without keeping you captive for hours on end because of the sheer volume of stories to be told? With two photo galleries recounting the essence of this unique road trip journey across Canada. In all, 60 pictures, worth, we hope, a thousand words each.
St. John's to North Bay
Thee first half of that road trip took us from St. John’s at the eastern tip of the country, all the way to North Bay, Ontario.
Kilometer 0
It's a tradition just about everywhere on the planet, and always a fun point of interest for tourists... or adventurers. We're talking here about the starting point of a route, often identified as kilometer or mile 0. The one pictured here marks the start of the Trans-Canada Highway, which, as its name suggests, crosses the country. It was inaugurated in 1962.
St. John's, Newfoundland
We took a bunch of snapshots in St. John's, but this one is a good representation of the city, one of whose main commercial activities is fishing. It was here that we had our first dinner together, on the eve of our road trip.
2025 Toyota Crown Signia
For each wave of the trip, four vehicles were made available, which we all rotated through en route. Sometimes that was planned, sometimes not. Two of them made the entire trip, coast-to-coast: the Crown Signia and the Land Cruiser. Why those two? In 1964, Toyota brought the Crown sedan and Land Cruiser SUV to Canada. A great way to come full circle.
1979 Toyota Cressida
No, this 1979 Cressida didn't make the trip with us. It was lent to us for a few hours on our first day, courtesy the owner of a dealership near St-John’s. We wasted no time getting behind the wheel and adding some 25 km to its odometer (which only counted some 86,000).
2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid
This Corolla hybrid was part of the fleet of vehicles in this first wave, but what's important here is where the car is photographed, on the site where Toyota's first plant was built in the country, in the Cape Breton region. The field is empty today, but it was special to be where it all began for the company in this country, and where “Canadian” Toyotas were built in 1968.
2024 Toyota GR86
We had to draw straws to get behind the wheel of this GR86 Trueno, especially for the portion of the route taking us along the famous Cabot Trail.
Arrival at the ferry
To get from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia by car, you need to take the ferry operated by Marine Atlantic. The crossing takes six to seven hours, more if the sea decides not to cooperate. When we arrived, we couldn't even see the ship in the dense fog. This picture was taken around 11:30 a.m., just as we readied to embark.
