Fears grow on import menace
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VEHICLE Builders and Repairers Association president Charles Bailey has revealed that there are plans to import already-bodied commercial vehicles into Britain from Japan.
Some complete vehicles have been imported from Japan but so far the number has been low enough to leave the work levels of British bodybuilders undisturbed but now Mr Bailey is to press for Government action to control the imports.
And Cheshire MP Gwynneth Dunwoody is to seek assurances from the Government over the threat of competition from Hino vehicles which may be built only a few miles from her constituents — Foclen — in Liverpool.
Mrs Dunwoody told CM: "This matter will not be allowed to rest. I shall press on with this — it is of concern to all involved in vehicle manufacture in Sandbach," she said.
Meanwhile a Colt spokesman told CM that the worldwide policy for the Colt parent company, Mitsubishi, was to involve local content in the vehicles wherever possible.
He said that in Indonesia, where the company has around 75 per cent of the market, up to 60 per cent of the vehicle was locally made — and in Indonesia the vehicles are mainly lighter vans and lorries similar to those which Colt intends to introduce into Britain early next year.
"We have created the indigenous motor industry in Indonesia," said the spokesman. The T120 van introduced in 1970 had sold 100,000 units by March this year.
The spokesman added that any Western European operation which the company embarked on would be run in much the same way — and it is known that Mitsubishi is considering setting up European plant to produce the lighter vehicles in its range.