The Tacoma is the eighth generation of a long line of Toyota compact trucks dating back to 1964. It was developed largely by Toyota's Hino truck manufacturing subsidiary in Japan, with major input from Toyota's technical centre in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is now being assembled at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., the Toyota/General Motors joint venture manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, as well as at Toyota's new plant in Baja, Mexico.
In 1966, Toyota acquired Hino, which built trucks; commercial trucks from Toyota still carry the Hino name.
Hino currently makes a wide variety of heavy trucks and buses, and was involved in designing and/or producing the Tacoma, T100, 4Runner (HiLux Surf), Sequoia, and Tundra.
Hino Motor Ltd., which has been producing heavy- and medium-duty trucks commercially since 1946, and which happens to be a Toyota affiliate (Toyota owns 50.1% of Hino Motor), assisted in the development of the '07 Tundra. It also participated in chassis development for the Land Cruiser and Seq