Japan Car Production By Brand : 1980-89

1980 Mazda 323. I owned a 5-door model

This was the decade that Japan really expanded its car production offshore. The first plants opened in North America as follows: Honda '82, Nissan '83, Toyota '84, Mazda '87, Mitsubishi '88 and Subaru/Isuzu '89 and Suzuki (Canada) '89. How would it affect domestic production? The number of passenger cars made in Japan from 1979 to 1989 increased by nearly 2.9 million! It obviously was too early to have too much impact in this decade.

Individually most grew consistently but two didn't at all. On the negative side Nissan flat-lined from 1980 to 1990, and it's share of car making in Japan dropped from 27.6 to 21.8%. The positive was Suzuki increasing enormously from 1.2% to 4.8% of total production.

Year	Toyota	Nissan	Honda	Mazda	Mitsub
1980	2,303,284	1,940,615	845,514	736,544	659,622
1981	2,248,171	1,864,251	852,177	840,630	606,883
1982	2,258,253	1,815,792	854,463	824,247	572,644
1983	2,380,753	1,858,782	857,686	861,580	523,754
1984	2,413,133	1,846,407	843,807	764,309	547,838
1985	2,569,284	1,864,701	956,410	815,074	570,865
1986	2,684,024	1,769,484	1,025,403	811,371	578,642
1987	2,708,069	1,803,924	1,021,895	853,309	594,654
1988	2,982,922	1,730,948	1,072,773	880,131	639,890
1989	3,055,101	1,972,508	1,155,682	967,665	708,418

Year	Suzuki	Subaru	Daihatsu	Isuzu	Total
1980	87,830	202,038	155,604	107,057	7,040,088
1981	94,785	190,451	147,219	129,564	6,976,112
1982	113,881	201,388	127,619	113,299	6,883,568
1983	137,528	230,462	185,159	116,184	7,153,871
1984	164,058	242,680	162,405	88,536	7,075,157
1985	236,198	259,673	161,559	213,052	7,648,801
1986	300,604	287,039	142,064	211,178	7,811,795
1987	296,979	266,755	141,572	203,930	7,893,074
1988	296,413	276,448	160,125	158,750	8,200,388
1989	430,053	310,623	263,631	188,725	9,054,395

Data source: JAMA.