Back in the eighties, Japan was in love with America. The Lincoln had more swagger than a karaoke bar at midnight, and baseball was bigger than Takeshi’s Castle.
Unfortunately, the halcyon days are gone for American corporations and Ford is ready call it quits in the land of the rising sun.
Presently, Ford Motor Company sells six models in Japan, ranging from the elusive Mustang to the family-based Fiesta. Collectively, all six models brought in no more than 5,000 sales in 2015 which gave Ford a 1.5% share of the important new car market.
One Japanese consumer we spoke to said Ford’s are just too big, with the Fiesta in particular coming under fire for being at least several times too huge. “We buy small cars here. The Ford Fiesta? Get outta here. Too big, man.”
Ford now see “no reasonable path to profitability” and have had to pull out of the country it has operated in since 1974.
Affected employees have all been notified via email.
Ford Motor Company will also be pulling out of the Indonesian market, where local manufacturing is too dominant. Ford had a share of just 0.6% of the imported new car market last year.
But it is the Japanese market that has become notorious in recent years for its frustrating volatility; at the moment, its automobile market is considered a no-go for foreign car manufacturers, with the situation not expected to improve anytime soon.
The economy is stagnant, so Ford had nothing else to do but say “sayonara!”
Will Titterington
He believes that words can take on a transformative aspect and wants to help people make better decisions today.
His influences as a writer include Hunter S Thompson and Jack Kerouac, while among his interests outside writing are music, art, foreign films and football.
He’d one day like to own a Tesla, and still holds a candle for the Ford Capri.
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