From the always fun Delanceyplace, a description of Japan’s initially bumpy entry into the American auto market in the 1950s, from Daniel Yergin’s The Quest:

“An odd and unfamiliar car might have been seen fleetingly on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the late 1950s. It was Toyota’s Toyopet S30 Crown, the first Japanese car to be brought officially to the United States. In Tokyo, Toyopets were used as taxis. But in the United States the Toyopet did not get off to a good start; the first two could not even get over the hills around Los Angeles. It is said that the first car delivered in San Francisco died on the first hill it encountered on the way to inspection. An auto dealer in that city drove it 180 times in reverse around the public library in an effort to promote it, but to no avail. The Toyopet, priced at $1,999, was anything but a hit. Over a four-year period, a total of 1,913 were sold. Other Japanese automakers also started exporting to the United States, but the numbers sold remained exceedingly modest, and the cars themselves were regarded as cheap, not very reliable, oddballs, and starter cars (lacking the vim and panache of what was then the hot import, the Volkswagen Beetle).”