Building cars AND houses

Would you buy a house from Ford? I wouldn’t. How about from Toyota? That, I might consider.

I’ve driven my Toyota Corolla since 1997, putting more than 180,000 miles on it. The car’s trunk doesn’t open, and I have a crack in the windshield, but it still runs fine. My Ford Taurus, on the other hand, is six years younger and has been in the shop more times than I can count.

I bring this up because of a story by writer John Murphy in the Wall Street Journal. The story focuses on the little-known and small prefabricated-housing division run by Toyota. You can read this fascinating story here.

Toyota has been building steel-frame houses since 1975. The houses are built to survive earthquakes and typhoons, and to keep out burglars.

The demand for the houses has been less than stellar. According to the Wall Street Journal story, sales of the prefabricated homes account for 0.5 percent of Toyota’s $262 billion in sales last year.

But the Japanese government is now calling for sturdier home construction. Toyota officials — always visionary — are hoping this will increase demand in its housing division. Company officials also hope that the planned launch in 2010 of its plug-in vehicle — which will need to be recharged at home — will boost Toyota’s homebuilding efforts.

After driving my Toyota Corolla for the better part of a decade, I can only say that if Toyota builds its homes as well as it does its cars, I’d be glad to own one of my own.