It has a boxy design compared to its sibling, the Toyota Crown, as well as a high-mounted hood, which allows its longitudinal engine to be placed forward, allowing for more passenger space. The rear seat has height clearance as much as 1.0 m from the cushion, and the knee clearance is about 0.6 m, comparable to European full-size sedans like Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The seat width is about 1.4 m. Right from the start, Toyota expected the Corolla to be a global model and built a huge factory to produce it not only for export as a completely built-up (CBU) model but also in disassembled form (CKD) for assembly in many countries. In total, the Corolla has been sold in some 140 countries worldwide and for many generations of owners, it has been the epitome of reliability, economy and durability. When the first generation was introduced in Japan, its population had passed the 100 million mark and economic growth was accelerating. The thinking at Toyota then was that 'people are living in nuclear families out in the suburbs, which means they'll need family cars to get around. A motorization boom is coming to Japan'. There was great optimism that this trend was going to be a strong one and Toyota made the bold decision to build a new plant which could produce 30,000 Corollas a month - at a time when the company was producing 50,000 cars in a whole year. "In retrospect, had motorization not caught on, we would have been stuck with surplus facilities because we had built an engine plant as well as an assembly plant specially for Corolla production," recalled Eiji Toyoda, a former chairman of the company. From the first generation, the Corolla has been designed taking into consideration the changing needs of motorists. For every Chief Engineer given the project over the years, two basic points had to be adhered to: "Corolla must be loved and appreciated by people the world over and it must continue setting new standards for automotive development".