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Hanji Umehara

Hanji Umehara

ToyotaDevelopment lead

The man who named the Land Cruiser: the engineering manager who led development of the first BJ series

Timeline

  1. 1936

    Joined

    Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Automobile DepartmentContract engineer

  2. 1950

    Director

  3. 1951
    Image coming soon
    Land Cruiser BJ

    1951–1955Development lead

    Up to the sixth station of Mt. Fuji, to prove it was no worse than a Jeep

    The US military and the National Police Reserve called for development of a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but Mitsubishi's Jeep was chosen. Umehara, the engineering manager who led development of the BJ series, was proud that it was no worse than the Jeep. To beat the record of a US Army Jeep that had climbed to the fifth station of Mt. Fuji, he took on a climb of the mountain, and both BJs made it all the way to the sixth station.

  4. 1960

    Toyota Central R&D Labs.Chair, Construction CommitteeManaging Director

  5. 1967

    Representative Director and President

  6. 1974

    Advisor

Profile

Graduated from Tohoku Imperial University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering. The first development lead for the first-generation BJ series of the Land Cruiser. At the time Toyota did not yet have its chief engineer system, and he was general manager of the engineering department. He gave the "Land Cruiser" (a cruiser on land) its name.

Translated from Japanese sources.

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