Shoichiro Toyoda, the honorary chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. who transformed the Japanese automaker into a leading global brand, died of heart failure on Tuesday, the company said. He was 97.Toyoda, a third-generation scion of the founding family who inherited its stake in the business, is credited with establishing a culture of quality control that helped Toyota evolve into a world-leading automaker. He was also responsible for pushing Toyota, which had started life as a loom manufacturer, to produce vehicles overseas.A grandson of Sakichi Toyoda, who founded the Toyota group, and son of …READ FULL ARTICLE
