HOWY

Just been reading this article and was wondering how subaru are likely to fair in the coming year BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Japan carmakers slash production

Pete

I think ANYONE can go bust as you put it, but surely with WRC Cars etc and people are still buying, slowy admittedly, i,m sure thye,ll survive

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

40% of Subaru is now in the hands of the worlds biggest car maker, Toyota. I don't think they'll go bust just yet.

Tidgy

jap is subaru's biggest market and has been for a while so uk sales figures are a bit irelevant, as i understand it the sales figure over there for them, although they have dropped, arn't that worrying compared to the rest of the market

noobyscooby

The UK importers might go though.

phil_wrx

iTrader: (2)

i know i girl whos husband works at honda swindon and there worried and now he wont get paid for the 2 month shut down

v8voodoo

I could certainly see I.M. pulling the plug on bringing them in.

GC8

International Motors would be no loss (any more than the old admin was to SN!).

rb5 286

iTrader: (2)

ColiNThESTI

i was at Japanese Car Imports - AutoBMC the other day looking at a 98 sti ended up puting a deposit down on it pick her up sat... but anyway was chatting to the chaps there seem like top guys and they were saying the main problem with importing is the exchange rate a sti costing 4k now would need to be priced as 7k! Because they are still selling for the same amount of Yen no one is going to pay 7k for a 10+ year old car so they said they wont be replacing there current stock of imports until something changes

on the upside this might help those of you with JDM imports retain value a bit more oh yea and me

SunnySideUp

Subaru may just go back to where they were before the Impreza Turbo and Rally success threw them into the limelight.

Farmer Giles and his agricultural cousins were happily buying, and running Subaru's into the ground, long before us Rally wannabbees got interested in the Marque!

MrRA

GM is the one to be watching right now, they could very well go bust within six months.

moneys

iTrader: (5)

EVERY single motor manufacturer is in the **** at the moment, especially 4x4 or performance cars, the freeze on the tax increases may help a little bit but not much. what we need is everyone to stop going on about the credit crunch and maybe move on a bit, the only people who can really start harpin is the people directly involved in the housing market. there the ones that are in deep **** at the moment. please stop going on about the same thing over an over.

the trouble is if everyone harps on about companies going bust then people wont buy off them.

cue all the scoobynet business proffesionals. im sure if you all knew your stuff as much as you make out, you wouldnt be sat on a computer spouting about it, surely you would be putting money into the markets that will make you money. i know for a fact that if i had spare cash at the moment that i would be snapping up all the repo houses and renting them out for a few years until the market recovers, the market will recover no matter what anyone says. it will recover quicker though if people stop bloody moaning about it.

T5NYW

iTrader: (4)

IM will be having the same problems as Colin states below Exchange rate.

Im selling high price cars in the present climate and new stock they will have to put prices up because of exchange rate. another nail in coffin

Nor £32K for new basic STi

Tony

stiler83

Lets not forget Subaru are part of Fuji Heavy Industries a truly huge corporation with vast interests and quite a diverse range of products. Can't see Subaru going under but I can see the market changing and Subaru's UK focus changing. Have to agree if IM were to cease trading it would be no loss. The first thing Subaru should do it to get a new styling dept, that would help a great deal.

subaruturbo_18

too true.

The rookie

iTrader: (1)

Ford, GM and Chrsyler could all be bankrupt on in chapter 11 within 6 months, most other manufacturers have enough cash reserves to cope for a lot longer, although of the Europeans Renault is in one of the worst shapes (and hence Nissan).

Can't see IM going under, as Subaru struggle worse than average due to CO2/economy issues, so should Daihatsu prosper!

Simon

Microstar

Subaru (Japan) is owned by FHI and Toyota and is extremely unlikely to go bust.

IM Group is another matter. They have had their contract with Subaru extended to 2013, but have recently let 32 people go. They have three major problems:

1. GBP/JPY exchange rate: In November 2007 £1 = JPY240. Nov. 2008 £1 = JPY142 !! That's an incredible appreciation of the Yen, and unlikely to change in the near future. That has pushed cars and parts ex-factory prices to a new high. Both Daihatsu and Subaru are made in Japan (unlike many Toyota's, Nissans, Hondas etc which are made elsewhere) so suffer the full impact of the Yen's rise.
2. The Daihatsu's are cheap cars and probably only yield £100/unit. Subaru should be the money-maker but high CO2/low mpg and unappealing designs mean that the brand is really struggling and sales are dismal.
3. IM Group do not sell many cars. They have to cover all of their overheads out of the profits made on their small number of sales. It is very difficult for a manufacturer to break-even in the UK with less than around 40,000 sales a year. A lot of Subaru new-car registrations are not SALES - they Tribeca's, Legacies, Foresters being registers by IM HQ or the dealers and then hang around for a few months before being passed out through the dealer network as used cars. Not a lot of profit for IM in those.
I think Subaru will retreat to being even more of a niche brand and probably drop some models for the UK. If things get really bad then Japan could take over the brand in the UK and support it directly from Tokyo.