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Isuzu to Quit U.S. SUV, Light Truck Sales in 2009

Isuzu Motors, which helped popularize sport-utility vehicles in the 1980s, said it will exit the U.S. consumer auto market next year, the first departure by an Asian brand since 2002, according to Bloomberg News.

Sales of Ascender SUVs and i-series pickup trucks, both supplied by General Motors Corp., will halt at the end of January 2009, Isuzu said today in a statement. U.S. demand for the company's vehicles has fallen 93 percent in eight years.

``There are no forecasts for continuation of the SUV business through introduction of a next-generation vehicle,'' Tokyo-based Isuzu said.

Isuzu's boxy Trooper sparked interest in truck-based SUVs in the late 1980s, helping push its U.S. sales to a peak of 103,629 in 1999. Since then, it's had the industry's steepest decline, selling just 7,098 vehicles last year -- the smallest volume for any Asia-based brand in the U.S.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 9:55 AM to Sales | Permalink

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