ino set for English assembly
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• The only assembler of Hino trucks in the UK and Ireland is poised to announce plans for a £20 million Hino distribution and spare parts plant in the North of England — and it says it wants to set up a fullblown British Hino assembly plant before 1992.
The move comes as the Japanese manufacturer launches a major spring offensive on the UK truck market.
Harris UK, part of Dublinbased J Harris (Assemblers), has bought a 6,000m2 site at Catterick, North Yorkshire,
• from Marley Tiles for the distribution and storage of new CVs and parts. Liam O'Neill, director of Hino importer HCV • Motor Vehicles of Warrington, and a close associate of the Harris group, says that Hino has a "futuristic outlook" and has received several enquiries about UK dealerships.
Later this year Hino will launch seven new models on the UK market, ranging from 7.5 to 38 tonnes. They are spearheaded by the longawaited 38-tonne sleeper-cab 4x4 tractive unit, the
311283KA, and complement Flino's existing six-wheel and aight-wheel rigid chassis. The 311283 roadtested by Commer iai (14-20 January) was :lashed through type approval :ests early this month at the Motor Industry Research kssociation proving grounds.
O'Neill predicts that an assembly factory could be 'within bounds of possibility" in the next four years. Harris's assembly plant outside Dublin started as a distribution depot in the mid-1970s. At present planning regulations restrict the Catterick plant to a trade-only distribution centre, which is scheduled to open in April, creating some 40 to 50 local jobs. Several experts are likely to be brought over from Dublin to help set up the plant, which will handle about 300 vehicles in its first year, says O'Neill, who predicts a rapid expansion thereafter.
Harris (UK), which was set up to establish the new plant, is headed by Robert Harris of the Dublin group: J Harris had its best-ever year in 1987.
E Hino has also begun exporting trucks to the United States. The Class Eight tractive units are the first Japanese heavy goods vehicles to reach North America, where they will be offered for customer evaluation.