Ed Bobit: The British Are Coming, the British Are Coming

The Japanese will be intense competitors in the '90s. They are moving into segments of the market that they haven't been in before, and they are also starting to move into the fleet business.-Harold "Red" Poling, Ford Motor Co. chairman - March 1990

You know what I think? I think that America is getting an inferiority complex about Japan. Everything from Japan is perfect...everything from America is lousy.-Lee Iacocca, Chrysler chairman - 1990 Boardroom commercial

Even Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, said recently that he doesn't have any confidence that the fourth year (of VRA) will be the last year - and GM, which wants to import small Japanese cars to sell under its own nameplates, is actively lobbying for an end to the curbs.-From a 1984 Wall Street Journal report

Actually, it isn't the Brits who are coming; my Paul Revere-ish headline was only to alert you to the Japanese who, many would concede, have already "arrived." Some of us have the longevity (meaning we're pretty old) to remember how all this happened and the sequence of events that is changing the face of the fleet business.

This is not meant to be a bedtime story but...in the beginning many years ago when people like Sam Lee and Zollie Frank developed the concept of fleet buying for fleet management it was pretty standard to choose between the economy models of Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth. It was like this for years. I remember Bob Blair, then Buick's fleet director, relating to me in 1978 (not all that long ago) that he broke the tight selector barrier by convincing PHH to add Buick to their recommendations.

Today, only 12 years later, the major fleet lessors carry-wide selectors recommending virtually a full spectrum. Interestingly, Toyota broke the import barrier with lessors by being added to the ARI list in 1988, just 10 years later. Eleven of the top lessors for 1991 include both Toyota and Nissan, with several also adding Mazda. Even Wheels, the lone "buy American" holdout, has reportedly added Nissan after their '91 recommendations were published.

Even though the Japanese Voluntary Restraint Agreement (VRA) was supposed to be "voluntary" (U.S. trade officials pressured) and temporary (originally designed to give domestics five years to "catch up") when announced in May 1981, it still stands today. Meanwhile the Japanese autos are getting about 28 percent of the U.S. car market but far less within fleets. The latest figures indicate that the imports are penetrating over 10 percent of the daily rental market and about two percent of the commercial market. Some observers feel that the import car makers would gladly divert most of the cutthroat rental market numbers for a stronger entry into the commercial segment.

We may have to find another word for "import" since most of the Japanese car makers are now building on our shores; Honda now boasts one car with 75 percent local content. Lincoln-Mercury may switch some content offshore to avoid CAFE classification on some models; Toyotas are built in Kentucky and California; Nissans in Tennessee; Hondas in Ohio: Eagle Premiers in Canada; and Tracers in Mexico. Some people have difficulty identifying what an import is today or are all truly "world cars" as touted?

According to Mr. Iacocca, the domestics (does that include imports building in the U.S.?) are caught up now. Buick ranks high on the J.D. Power trouble-free survey; new product looks good out of Detroit. Some say it should; it's 10 years, after VRA was instituted. With "imports" solidly on lessor selectors for 1991 it will be interesting to see if they gain in the fleet market if the driver choosing has his or her choice.