Toyota Auto Body California (TABC) is a manufacturing plant in Long Beach, California. Established in 1972, TABC was the first Toyota plant in North America. A subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America, the plant occupies 30 acre.
The plant produces sheet metal and aluminum components, weld subassemblies, steering columns, catalytic converters, and painted service parts for Toyota's North American manufacturing facilities, for export to Toyota's facilities in Japan, and as past model service parts for Toyota Motor North America.
History
The plant was established to circumvent the chicken tax, a 25 percent tariff on light trucks imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken. While the government said the tariff was meant to curtail importation of German-built Volkswagen Type 2s, other models were also impacted, including the Toyota Hilux (also known as the Toyota Pickup). Toyota found a tariff engineering loophole: they could import "chassis cab" configurations (which included the entire truck, less the truck bed) with only a 4% tariff. When the trucks arrived in the United States, a truck bed would be locally built and attached to the chassis before being sent to dealers.
To do this work, Toyota struck a deal in 1971 with Atlas Fabricators, which would begin producing the truck beds and installing them starting in November.