Eiji Toyoda, who made Toyoto an industry giant, dies at 100 Mr. Toyoda helped reshape a maker of Chevrolet knockoffs into an automaker whose manufacturing efficiency became the envy of General Motors and Ford Motor Co. By the time Mr. Toyoda stepped down in 1994, the company was assembling Corollas in the United States, had started the Lexus luxury brand and had initiated a project that would develop the world's most successful gas-electric hybrid, the Prius. Toyoda was a younger cousin of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of the company that bears a slightly altered version of the family's name. He was one of six company presidents to come from the family. During the 69 years he worked at the company, based in central Japan's Toyota City, it rose from assembling its cars out of parts made by GM to being 16 times more valuable than the Detroit-based automaker. Eiji Toyoda pushed his company to learn from Ford and GM about mass production of automobiles. Mr. Toyoda became president of Toyota Motor Co. in 1967 and served for 15 years - longer than anyone before or since. In 1982, Toyota Motor and Toyota Motor Sales Co. merged to form Toyota Motor Corp. Mr. Toyoda became chairman of the combined company and served until 1992. He was made honorary chairman of the company upon retirement and kept the title of honorary adviser. Under his stewardship, the carmaker set up at least 10 new factories, began exporting to dozens of countries and built a reputation for manufacturing excellence. The Corolla, introduced in 1966, became the best-selling car of all time. Mr. Toyoda stressed the importance of manufacturing concepts that became central to Toyota's production methods, such as "kaizen," or continuous improvement, and "jidoka," the use of machines that shut down when irregularities are detected. His greatest achievement may have been laying the foundation for the company to apply its manufacturing expertise overseas, which led to the formation of Toyota's first venture in the United States in 1983 - a year after Mr. Toyoda passed the presidency to his cousin, Shoichiro. That venture, New United Motor Manufacturing, in partnership with GM, began production in 1984 in Fremont, Calif. Its success showed that Toyota's manufacturing principles could be applied across cultures, giving the company the confidence to make its own independent plants in Kentucky, Canada, England and France, according to Mr. Toyoda. He also oversaw Toyota's development of the Lexus, approving development of the luxury car in 1983 to compete with Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The first vehicle, the LS 400, went on sale in the United States in 1989. The U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame inducted Mr. Toyoda in 1994, making him the second honoree from Japan, after Soichiro Honda. Eiji Toyoda was born Sept. 12, 1913, near Nagoya in central Japan. He grew up inside his father's textile mill, schooled from an early age in machines and business, according to his autobiography, "Toyota: Fifty Years in Motion."