Summary and commentary based on reporting by John O’Dell, Los Angeles Times, February 14 1992.
Original article: Los Angeles Times Archives
In early 1992, Daihatsu Motor Co.—then one of Japan’s smaller but highly regarded automakers—announced that it would end U.S. passenger-vehicle production and exports.
Although critics praised the quality of Daihatsu’s compact cars and trucks, American buyers never fully embraced them. Sales dropped roughly 40 percent in 1991, forcing the company to retreat from a market it had entered only four years earlier.
Industry analysts at the time pointed to several causes: vehicles that were “too small for U.S. tastes,” limited advertising budgets, and a rising wave of anti-Japanese trade sentiment in the early 1990s. Daihatsu had introduced the Charade hatchback and later the Rocky (F300) 4×4, both praised for efficiency and build quality but overshadowed by better-known rivals such as Suzuki, Isuzu, and Toyota’s own small-SUV offerings.
C.R. (Dick) Brown, then executive vice-president of Daihatsu America, confirmed that the company would continue in the United States as a parts and service distributor, supporting about 50,000 existing customers. He stressed that “this is not fatal—we’re still going to be here.”
At its peak in 1990, Daihatsu sold nearly 15,000 vehicles in the U.S.; by 1991, that figure had fallen below 9,000. Even so, the brand remained profitable elsewhere, supplying more than 130 foreign markets and maintaining strong domestic sales in Japan.
More than three decades later, enthusiasts still remember the Rocky (F300/F310) as one of the most capable small off-roaders of its time—an enduring symbol of Daihatsu’s engineering skill and the challenges of bringing a niche 4×4 to the competitive U.S. market.