Camry? Escalade? Corolla? Malibu?

Toyota might be the only competitor for the biggest car manufacturer in the US, General Motors.

An article on Fortune 500 Special Issue talks about how America's No. 1 car company changed its ways and started looking like Toyota. In the early 1980s, former GM CEO, Jack Smith, visited Japan to study Toyota's stamping and assembly operations - something nobody at GM, amazingly, had done before. He discovered that GM needed more than twice as many people as Toyota to build the same number of cars! But when he reported it to GM's executive committee, they didn't believe him and they dismissed his findings. Now, Toyota is getting bigger and bigger. Wherever I drive, most of the cars I see is either from Toyota or GM.

In the US, GM is No. 3 for America's Largest Corporations. Globally, GM is in position No. 5, while Toyota is No. 8. GM still needs to move faster and smarter because while GM is becoming more like Toyota, Toyota is becoming more like GM as well. GM is integrating its local engineering and design operations in places like Germany and Brazil. Toyota is opening design and engineering centers in North America and Europe to more closely tailor its products to local tastes.

Watch out GM, the Japanese kicks ass!