Pressure rose on Toyota days before its chief faces a U.S. congressional grilling, as new documents showed the automaker boasted about saving $100 million by limiting its safety recalls.

Internal company documents subpoenaed by a Congress panel showed that Toyota executives reported last year that the company had limited the financial impact of its product recalls through lobbying in Washington.

In one internal document, Toyota's top North America executive Yoshimi Inaba spoke of "wins for Toyota and (the car) industry" achieved by its Washington bureau when it "secured safety rulemaking favorable to Toyota."

Inaba said in the presentation that Toyota saved $100 million  by negotiating with U.S. authorities a limited recall of the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES requiring it to take back floor mats but not fix car defects.

The company also said it had avoided an investigation into rust problems affecting the undercarriage of its Tacoma pickup trucks.

Toyota reacted to the release of the documents by pledging: "Our first priority is the safety of our customers, and to conclude otherwise on the basis of one internal presentation is wrong."

Critics have attacked Toyota for its sluggish response to complaints linked to accelerator systems that cause cars to race out of control, and of covering up the defects. Former Toyota lawyer Dimitrios Biller, now involved in a legal battle with the company, has accused it of hiding and destroying evidence of safety flaws and of "a culture of hypocrisy and deception."

America's top automobile insurer State Farm has said it first reported Toyota acceleration problems to the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2004, also prompting questions as to whether U.S. regulators dithered in response.

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