Detroit held 52 percent of the market last month, its smallest share ever. The Japanese took nearly 40 percent of the US market, their biggest.
Only now, most of the Japanese sales come from the factories that Detroit insisted they create.
Other cultures
And they are not just places to make cars. US plants have given the Japanese companies a tutorial in dealing with other cultures. Toyota is now building its Camry sedan, the US' best-selling car, in seven countries, including Vietnam and China, using ideas gleaned from Camry's base in Kentucky.
Rural towns like Georgetown, Kentucky, and East Liberty, Ohio, mere dots on the map before Toyota and Honda arrived, now boast jobs with US$25-an-hour wages that rival those at Detroit factories, helping offset some of the half-million automotive jobs Detroit lost. The factories have lifted the economies of entire states, like Indiana, which recently won a new Honda plant; Tennessee, where Nissan has two factories and will put its US headquarters; and Alabama, with four major car factories in 15 years.
With that has come influence in state capitals as well as in Washington, where the Japanese no longer face the protectionist threats that forced them to invest in the US. Now states line up to offer millions of dollars in incentives to land their plants, while US President George W. Bush, who said Detroit needed to build "relevant" products, has postponed a meeting with Detroit auto leaders three times this year.
"In an odd way," Cuneo said, "we owe Iacocca a favor for continuing to keep the pressure on."
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