Chevrolet Cavalier was sold as “Toyota Cavalier” in Japan…..but….why?
It was 1992 spring, American President George Bush visited Japan. Believe it of not, Bush brought CEO of GM, Ford and Chrysler with him.
It is very unusual thing civilian business people coming overseas with US President. The reason was clear. They came over to force Japanese market to buy more American cars.
obviously it was political performance before the election in 1992.
Those days, American Big 3 was struggled with the slow sales and Japanese were dramatically expanding their sales in American market. That was how, Americans were trying to sell more cars in Japanese market.
Soon after that, I heard news says GM and Toyota were going to develop a new compact car together and it was going to be next Chevrolet Cavalier and also they are going to sell in Japanese market too.
That was an exiting news to me.
What I expected was “Toyota car with American driving feel” or “American car with Toyota quality“.
Toyota was a reliable cars….but they are simply uncomfortable, dull & boring.
Then, when I first saw new Cavalier….at least it did not look anything special…..
But, when Japanese model “Toyota Cavalier” came out, All the Japanese media said how beautiful the body shape was.
It was about same size as Japanese family sedans with a little bit bigger engine and more reasonably priced….but it was not popular at all.
It was only “Toyota car with American quality” instead of “American car with Toyota quality“.
In Japanese market, which has full of reasonable compact cars, Cavalier did not have any sales point.
Although it was sold as medium family sedan….it was an entry class in America. So, the interior was cheap, so as the exterior design.
It was reasonably priced….bit Japanese 2nd hands were much cheaper and also better quality/
In that case, why did Toyota have that kind of deal?
I am sure there was Japanese Government behind.
America always criticized that Japanese market was not open enough and that was reason Americans could not have enough dealerships.
So, Toyota, which has biggest sales network in Japan sold Cavalier which was similar size and price with Japanese cars.
Then, they could prove even Toyota could not sell it….it meant Americans could not sell because they were not making cars Japanese market expects.
Since then, American government stopped complaining about Japanese market and it was the end of the long going America Japan trade war.
Then, what happen to the unpopular over-stocked Cavaliers in Japan?
Most of them were sold to Police dept. or city councils with full of discount and when the fleet lease ended, nobody wanted it and were all exported to New Zealand.
Over there, it was quite popular and the company I used to work sold quite many of them.
But, local Toyota dealers refused to service them and even GM refused to service them because they did not sell them.
All the Cavalier in New Zealand were from Japan. This meant they struggled with poor parts supply and limited service capacity.
At least that design looked attractive to Kiwis…..but they did not know it was American cars at beginning .
Westcoast Auto Design Studio 