The First Toyota: The Toyota AA

This is, disputably, a 1936 Toyota AA and, if it really is,  this particular car is the oldest Toyota known to exist. I saw it in the amazing Louwman Museum, in The Hague. The car spent most of its life in a barn in Siberia. The Toyota AA was produced from 1936 to 1943. It had a 3.3 litre six producing 62 horsepower. Styling was inspired by the Chrysler Airflow (below).

Outside the Louwman Museum, a massive, impressive Stalinist sculpture of a man-behind-the-wheel. Looks to me like a Dutch, or, even more likely, German m-b-t-w. That's a euro-frown. Or euro-scowl. Driving in northwestern Europe is not for the happy-go-lucky. If you want to relax, take the train. Highways here in the NL are well-built, well-maintained, and almost always thick with traffic. If you're lucky the traffic moves at high speed. But the snarls can be remarkably long and grueling, especially in Germany and in south Holland, between Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht.  You get a couple of meters space at either end to call your own, and you move with the pack at 130 km/h. Let's call it 82mph. Faster, in the fast lane, in Germany. On the whole I prefer motoring by aged truck in Far-West Texas.