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By Bloomberg

Toyota Motor Corp. chose an unlikely birthday for its Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, the car it pitches as nothing less than “a turning point in automotive history.”

Five years ago, Toyota’s sudden-acceleration recall crisis put President Akio Toyoda on the hot seat before members of the U.S. Congress and in tears before sympathetic dealers. Today, the founding-family scion holds a ceremony marking a car named after the Japanese word for “future” rolling off the line.

Rare as it might be for companies to draw attention to a low point in their history, the Motomachi plant that’s building Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai won’t be alone in getting a reminder. The February edition of an internal company magazine highlighted the anniversary, calling it the day Toyota restarted and reminding employees of lessons learned -- think about the customer and keep quality up to snuff.

“It is quite unusual that Toyota is holding this event on an anniversary of a time many in Toyota would think was a time best forgotten,”said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo. “Do you think Ford Motor Co. launches any product on the day they retired the Pinto? It’s not just in Japan that this is unusual -- worldwide, companies usually don’t draw attention back to rough patches.”

Profit Forecast

Toyota has come a long way in the five years since its 58- year-old president committed to restoring trust in the company he said had been squandered because it grew too fast. The carmaker managed to outsell all other manufacturers each of the last three years, even as Toyoda has resisted building new car factories since 2012.

For the year ending in March, Toyota has forecast a record 2.13 trillion yen ($17.9 billion) profit. With a market capitalization of 27.8 trillion yen as of yesterday, the company is approaching its 2007 peak of 30.1 trillion yen.

The Mirai, selling for 7.24 million yen, represents Toyota’s bet that the emissions-free cars of the future will run on hydrogen. The wager will be a small one initially, with the company planning to build just 700 of the sedans in 2015.

By contrast, Toyota sold more than 860 Camry sedans per day in January to U.S. customers. The company intends to produce about 2,000 Mirai sedans in 2016 and 3,000 in 2017.