How come the Japs have not taken over the World truck market, as they have with everything else? I would have said that they are only good at consumer goods (cars included), but their earthmoving equipment does well. They also sell lots of vans and small trucks in most places, but as far as “premium” heavy lorries goes, they have virtually no market presence at all, both sides of the Atlantic. What is it about heavy lorries that the World’s premier manufacturing nation can’t do?
nissan volvo,mitsch m-b Hino? izuzu dead?
Creeping in. Isuzu 7.5 tonners very popular round here especially with coalmen, low ULW apparently so high payload. Noticed a few tipper operators locally getting Hinos, and our local skip firm with a DAF fleet has just started running a Hino 4 wheeler. As far as the UK is concerned, the Japs took advantage at a time when most of the cars sold in Britain were still British made, and were with certain exceptions mostly absolute cr4p. The Japanese cars were better made, better equipped and very reliable, what wasn’t to like? The Japanese were clever with their marketing too, giving their cars nice ■■■■■ English sounding names like Cedric and Violet. Once people overcame their initial resistance to cars from the land of the rising sun, tried one and found out how much better they were, there was no turning back. It was the same with their bikes, fast reliable, and didn’t drop oil all over the place. It was only import restrictions that stopped them taking over even faster. But as far as lorries were concerned, with the notable exception of BL, most were still pretty decent, and most operators didn’t want to upset their customers by being seen to buy Japanese, so the Japs didn’t have the same advantage. Lots of good lorries to choose from these days, the only Japanese one I’ve driven is a little 3.5 tonne Isuzu, it’s got a 3 man cab, well, a 3 hunchbacked gnome cab, and from what I’ve seen, the bigger Japanese cabs look just as cramped and basic.
Bernard
albion1938:
Creeping in. Isuzu 7.5 tonners very popular round here especially with coalmen, low ULW apparently so high payload. Noticed a few tipper operators locally getting Hinos, and our local skip firm with a DAF fleet has just started running a Hino 4 wheeler. As far as the UK is concerned, the Japs took advantage at a time when most of the cars sold in Britain were still British made, and were with certain exceptions mostly absolute cr4p. The Japanese cars were better made, better equipped and very reliable, what wasn’t to like? The Japanese were clever with their marketing too, giving their cars nice ■■■■■ English sounding names like Cedric and Violet. Once people overcame their initial resistance to cars from the land of the rising sun, tried one and found out how much better they were, there was no turning back. It was the same with their bikes, fast reliable, and didn’t drop oil all over the place. It was only import restrictions that stopped them taking over even faster. But as far as lorries were concerned, with the notable exception of BL, most were still pretty decent, and most operators didn’t want to upset their customers by being seen to buy Japanese, so the Japs didn’t have the same advantage. Lots of good lorries to choose from these days, the only Japanese one I’ve driven is a little 3.5 tonne Isuzu, it’s got a 3 man cab, well, a 3 hunchbacked gnome cab, and from what I’ve seen, the bigger Japanese cabs look just as cramped and basic.
Bernard
Most of the big Jap lorries of the 1980s onwards seemed to have their general cab design copied from the Leyland T45. You would have thought that, with their superior detail engineering ability, the Japanese could have swatted the European and US manufacturers aside. It seems they lacked something, or just did not bother. We need some Australian contributors to comment- their market has a mix of all nations’ vehicles. Were those 20+litre Japanese engines marketed in Oz?
I remember Ashmores of Dudley had an Isuzu 32t tractor in the early 70’s, it had a glass fibre cab with a sleeper and seemed to be quite roomy inside, don’t know what happened to it but it was definitely a jap import as it had the 3 green speed lights on the roof,IIRC each one lit up at different speeds ■■ never seen another one since !
Trev_H:
I remember Ashmores of Dudley had an Isuzu 32t tractor in the early 70’s, it had a glass fibre cab with a sleeper and seemed to be quite roomy inside, don’t know what happened to it but it was definitely a jap import as it had the 3 green speed lights on the roof,IIRC each one lit up at different speeds ■■ never seen another one since !
Hi Trev, Chris Ashmore intended to import them, then the paperwork nightmare began, end of job!! I think that that unit got exported, was`nt it painted green?
Roy Jones, set up a Hino agency at Ashley Street, and Adam Jones ran one Hino tractor, around the time that John was selling all the Mitsubish pick ups via Colt cars. Do you remember them, all dolled up with split rim wheels, looked the works, long before the Japanese pickup market opened up. I think that the Hino thing ran foul of the Harris Assemblers agreement, although when Neil Jones was running Eagle Truck sales, there was loads of Japanese Hino stuff up in that office, (come to that there was just loads of stuff up in that office anyway)!! I know that Roy went to Japan, more than once. Interesting bit of history really, Cheerio for now.
If you go to the carribean, there are only a few ex uk trucks left, they have all been replaced with jap trucks, mitshubishi, isuzu, toyota, hino. I was talking to a guy who ran containers out of bridgetown and he said they had a deal with japan over funding local infrastructure in return for reducing the import tax on new jap trucks.
when i worked at Swifts in northampton, we had an Isuzu NRQ (i think) 7.5 on long term demo. Good truck, the design and layout was very reminiscent of the TK Bedford ( icluding flappy mirrors and a pull up prop shaft handbrake), even had an exhaust brake.
Wasn’t entirely popular with drivers, we had leyland roadrunners and iveco-ford cargo’s at the time, but it was a tough and reliable little truck, i liked it , well i was the transport manager, and i could get more weight on and it was more reliable then the other 2 makes.
looking at current 7.5 a few months ago , there is a big disparity in what you can get on the average japanese 7.5 (around the 3 tonnes mark), and what you can get on your avereage european(more likely 2.5 or 2.6 at the most).
Alright the cabs are a bit more basic ,but as a workhorse i dont think you can beat them. i think european manufactures just try and fit a slimmed down 18 tonne cab onto a 7.5 and thats where they lose the payload.
i know one thing, if a Hino (owned by toyota)is as reliable as all the toyotas I’ve had since1974 , that would be my next truck.
They can’t get type approval because they don’t have enough lights. 
Harry Monk:
They can’t get type approval because they don’t have enough lights.
that looks like an old jukebox!!
Harry Monk:
They can’t get type approval because they don’t have enough lights.
That is gross. Surely it is not used to actually do work? I would feel less of a twit going to the pub wearing a peephole bra and ■■■■■ set, than driving that into a transport cafe (A normal pub, not one of those exotic places they have in London). Still, the styling of the standard article is not much more attractive.
Crude but functional and reliable seems to be the consensus so far, at least regarding the 7.5 tonners. I still can’t fathom why sales of the big Jap stuff do not take off. There seems to be periods when the Hino 8 wheelers gain a bit of popularity, but they never make it stick. Why?
In the early 1970’s the Japs were only scratching the surface of the Irish heavy truck market as the operators remained loyal to leyland,AEC,Guy etc… as these were good reliable trucks with good back up. Volvo was making inroads with the long haul operators along with the odd appearance of all the Continental brands. Ford,Bedford and Commer/Dodge had the light/medium weight market ■■■■■■■ between them. Again basically sound products with a decent back up by and large which kept operators and drivers reasonably happy. Indeed the early Hino’s that appeared were not very reliable,and no two seemed to be assembled with similar components. This led to a bad start for Hino.
Harris Assemblers worked hard at improving this lack lustre beginning with an improved model range,and set up a good nationwide dealer network. The new models were a vast improvement on what came beforehand and their reliability became very noteworthy.
The big break came in the mid/late ‘70’s when their was a massive union stike which paralysed the vehicle manufacturers/distributors in the UK. No parts or even trucks to be got for over a year in several cases. Good dealers jumped onboard the Hino ship and served their loyal customers. One big Dairy CoOp had a fleet of nine Guy Big J4 Gardners tractor units collecting milk from farms. After six months,they had only two left running after cannibalising the other seven. Imagine their surprise when Harris’ drove a fleet of brand new Hinos into their yard one morning all painted up in their colours and said…‘Draw your milk with these,until you get sorted out with your Guys’…They did…and three months later,they called Harris’ to tell them take away the Guys and ordered more Hinos. The went on to buy thousands of Hinos after that.
The Hino was cheap and reliable and suited the market at that time. They were easy to keep going and needed very little workshop time. They lost the market in the early 1990’s when they did not make an engine that satisfied European legislation at that time,and operators turned to European manufacturers to supply their trucks from their on in…
andrew.s:
Harry Monk:
They can’t get type approval because they don’t have enough lights.
that looks like an old jukebox!!
Hells teeth, whoever did that needs help,… psychiatric help. You’d need a small power station to run that lot.