Kenichi Imaizumi

ToyotaDevelopment lead

Made the Crown a status symbol in Japan with the seventh generation, the "Someday, a Crown" car

Timeline

1983
Crown 7th generation
1983–1987Development lead
Balancing innovation with customer expectations pays off
From the struggles of the fourth generation, which tried a bold design, the Crown learned that it must never get too far ahead of its customers. The chief engineers who followed developed the car while wrestling with how to balance the challenge of innovation with customers' expectations. That accumulated effort bore fruit in the seventh and eighth generations under Imaizumi: the seventh is still remembered through the phrase "Someday, a Crown," and the eighth recorded the highest sales of any generation.
Toyota
Toyota
1987
Crown 8th generation
1987–1999Development lead
Record Sales for the Crown
With the eighth generation, which Imaizumi took on after the seventh, the Crown recorded the highest sales in its history. In his speech at the launch of the new Crown, President Akio Toyoda said that after joining the company, he took part in production preparations for the eighth-generation model change at Motomachi Plant, his first workplace. He says he still remembers how proudly everyone worked.

Kenichi Imaizumi

Hiroyuki Watanabe
Subordinate
Watanabe, who worked on development of the ninth- and tenth-generation Crown, honed his skills under Imaizumi of "Someday, a Crown".

Chief engineer of the seventh- and eighth-generation Crown.

Translated from Japanese sources.