A Case Study of Anglo Japanese Cooperation in the Motor Vehicle Industry: Ishikawajima, Wolseley, Isuzu and Rootes

Abstract

Japan is today the world’s second-largest producer of motor vehicles after the United States. In 1997, 10.97 million units were produced in Japan, and Japan’s total domestic output of motor vehicles accounted for about 20 per cent of world production.1 Attention has thus focused on the changing relationship between the world’s two principal motor vehicle industries from the prewar period, when motor vehicles assembled by North American manufacturers in Japan dominated the Japanese domestic market, to the postwar period, during which Japanese motor vehicles made significant inroads into the North American market and Japanese manufacturers began production in North America.2 The Japanese motor vehicle industry has also come to play a significant role in Britain, however. Four Japanese manufacturers had production facilities in Britain in 1997: Nissan, IBC (an Isuzu-General Motors joint venture), Honda and Toyota. These facilities produced 5094 000 vehicles in 1997, almost one-third of UK total output, though General Motors subsequently took control of IBC. Approximately three-quarters of those vehicles were exported, and exports of vehicles made by Japanese companies in Britain accounted for more than one-third of Britain’s total vehicle exports in 1997.3 Indeed, motor vehicles are now Britain’s single largest export item to Japan.4