To set the record straight- essentially JBYRD is correct, in that Toyota owns Raymond but the events that occurred were that BT Industries purchased Raymond (around 2000) and Toyota purchased BT Industries and got Raymond in the bargain. Toyota wanted a clearer shot at the European Market that BT offerred them at the time which is a much bigger Market than the Class II and partial Class I & III Raymond controlled in the US.

I agree with that Dave. A slow decline is what Clark is facing and Young An provided a bandade to a heavily bleeding wound.

At the time of the purchase I worked with Clark and the owner of Young An owns majorities in many other companies including Doosan Bus. 90% may be a stretch but at that time he was the wealthiest person in Korea, north or south. Regardless of the ownership the time of bankruptcy is what I feel took Clark from the #1 spot and allowed Toyota to capture the market share.

Clark are owned by Young An hat co and also own Omega in big trucks , but in the new market of Super companies that will emerge over the next three or four years they will loose market share again. They won't be able to compete with the new companies and there dealer networks. The only way Clark will survive will be a tie up with Doosan, Hyundai, and Crown if Clark don't do this they won't be around in six to ten years time. Clark products aren't that good and there holding company might have money now but how long will they want to pump money into a company that is loosing money and market share. They might as well concentrate on the profitable side of there Business Doosan bus company and have a small local production for there forklift for the local market

JBYRD,
It is a bit of a stretch to state Young An Hat owns 90% of Korea. From info I could find that they posted a sales revenue of about $210 million in 2007 on their hat operations and aren't listed in the top South Korea companies like Samsung #1 at $165 Billion & SKHynix at #10 of $16.4 billion and other companies like Hyundai Motors, Hyundai Mobis Kia, LG Chemical sandwiched in between. Certainly, there venture into the lift truck business & bus will make their today revenue increase but not enough to come close to the top 10.

Yep Yong An also own doosan bus company and nearly 90 percent of Korea. Was the only way Clark could stay open but the damage done during the years of no aprts, no production and bankrupt dealers did enough damage to bring them off the top of the market share in the US and will likely hinder them for many years to come.

Clark is currently owned by Young An, a Korean hat maker and I believe they also bought Samsung, that made certain Clark forklifts (primarily ICE products)for a period of time.

Caterpillar had a lift truck relationship with Doosan formerly called Daewoo and that ended when Cat & Mitsubishi joined forces as MCFA, MCFE, MCFS.

Clark went bankrupt and were bought by the owner of Doosan Bus in Korea. Toyota didn't and bought raymond. Simple as that really.

I was fortunate to have worked in the industry in the "good old days" 1957 to 97- making me too old to switch horses in my later years!

I Have worked in five US big markets within the lift truck industry, when out in the trade speaking with customers who have or had Linde, they all say the same thing, Poor Service, Poors parts, no dealership or aftermarket help.

As for Clark, when I first started in this business, and Toyota starting to gain market share, I remember all of the Clark salesman leaving the local Clark dealership to work for the local Toyota dealership, to this day they are still there today waiting to retire.

In reply to bbforks regarding Clarks demise- it was not a fast fall off a slippery slope- it was a culmination of many years of miscues. I first want to say that I owe Clark a much better than average living over my 34 years representing their product and they are a Co. of the highest integrity. They got a real bump start with sales after wwll with their reputation of building almost indestructable lifts that carried over into industry and were bought by the returning vets now working in these industries. They then hit another home run with the Clarklift C30 to 50 after gettting the "A" model concerns repaired. I saw them as being too slow in re-engineering their products to meet the up and coming competition.I feel that they ignored their Dealer Council as to what the market was asking for and the engineering dep't. was controlled too much by the legal dep't. to keep up with the current specs of their competitors.

Short Term Rentals some will define as less than one year, rental period & Long Term Rentals greater than one year. Most of these are financed but the assets belong to the dealer & their balance sheets but offer the dealer flexibility to exchange equipment during agreement term. If equipment is leased, the asset belongs to the finance company and all the terms, conditions are tied to a specific s/n number unit(s) for the duration of the agreed upon finance period. Just like financing a car to own or lease.

STR = short term rental
LTR = long term rental

I appreciate all the feed back. It seems that marketing & price seem to be the key for both brands. I haven't heard any input on how 1 truck was really better in some way than the other.

I do have a question for johnr j- could you elaborate on what "STR & LTR" are. I'm not familiar with these terms.

I also would agree that the Toyota brand has strength, but Nissan also has strength for it's brand through it's automotive market. Are Toyota's & Nissan's competitively priced between the two, or are Toyota's less expensive?

I don't think the strength of the Toyota brand, built primarily in the automotive market, can be overstated. I also think they were ahead of the pack in terms of style and ergonomics for their price range.

One of the biggest things that happened is just like steel from China. Toyota a few years back flooded the market with trucks at or below cost. They made up the difference on parts sales.
The biggest showing is with Coke and Pespi worldwide.

When Clark was king of the hill they had a great number of company owned stores and promoted strong STR & LTR and customer finance programs (aka financial merchandising) and were leaders in developing national account along with Hyster. Then Clark started sell off their company stores and began loosing control of the distribution system. Then their move to Battle Creek, MI to Kentucky did not serve them well at all, then Terex got involved with Clark and Clark's parts operations went to **** in a hand basket. By this point the former king of the hill was rolling down the backside of that hill very rapidly.

Davelift: One reason Linde's don't do well in the US is that a FMV (fair market value) lease of 36 to 60 months depending on anticipated annual usage is VERY common, where basically the end users is only paying for the usage and at the end of the term they turn it in & get new units before the high cost of repairs period kicks in. These FMV leases can be structured with or without a maintenance agreement. A finance company owns the equipment during the lease period is ultimately responsible for selling the asset at the end of the lease to recoup at least a predetermined residual value or greater if the condition of the equipment and Fair Market Value will allow. They can be sold to the lessor, local dealer or open market. Typically, units sold on a FMV program don't show up on the selling dealers balance sheets.
So what I have said is Linde's are higher priced than other makes, therefore their monthly payments will be higher than the competition for the same time period and because most trucks will not run more than 10,000 hours in a 5 year period and customers don't really care that a Linde will run 20,000 hrs or 10 years because they plan on releasing new units every 5 years - why pay for something you aren't ever going to use. Certainly, the Linde lift can fit into the niche markets that are classified "mean, dirty & nasty" operations but that is only about 3 - 5% of the total market, the rest of the lift truck dogs fight & eat in the other 80 - 85% of the market. The missing 10% of the market includes light duty and specialty type lifts.

I think the US market is totally different to the European market and it is here ware Clark lost out. North America like a simple truck that will last you don't need to be the best truck just simple that does the job and has a very good service back up. Toyota looked at Clark seen where they could improve and then went after Clark dealers with a lower cost truck. Toyota understand the two point's that makes you number 1 in the US. These are value and service You don't need to be the most technological truck in the market as Toyota aren't all you need is value for money and a very good service back up. If you look at Taylor who are number 1 in US in larger trucks their truck is not complicated it is quite basic and simple backed up by a good service network that is why they are number 1 Same with Toyota. In Europe where trucks are more technical Linde and Junghienrich do well but yet they don't seem to do as well in the US., This is a question many have asked and the answer is quite simple the trucks are just to technical and cost are to high over a basic truck and the US Customer who tend to look after there own truck or purchase them instead of rent don't see a benefit in the extra cost. They just see higher costs and a more difficult truck to repair. from what i have seen Toyota don't have a canbus system in the US they use manual hydraulics not electric hydraulics this is why they keep ahead of the European manufactures and Mits / Cat. In US Mits and Cat sell better with manual hydraulics. The main challengers to Toyota will come from China when the Chinese as some in the construction equipment industry have start to manufacture in the US they will become more power full in the Market because the US like to buy local , which is not a bad point you tend to see US made trucks sell better than imported trucks.

I cant stand pure Toyota counter balances full stop.
Awful to work on, no design thought on maintenance, old fashioned drum brakes with auto transmission.

Cesab make a better counter balance then Toyota, at least Cesab listened to the engineers feedback & made improvements to the design when they released a new model.

Give me a Linde IC truck any day of the week, bombproof reliability, easy to work on due to the design team using there brains & hydrostatic drive / brakes.

SAS is really just a sales gimmick, yes it does do what it says on the tin BUT Toyota product quality these days is awful, people still fall for the Toyota badge image / name.

When Clark was amking the C500 series trucks they were probably the best there was was leaks and all. Had a sleeved engine that was cheap and easy too rebuild. They then made drastic changes that did them in. Along comes Toyota and Nissan with very good trucks selling for way under Clark and Clark evenntually went away (almost).Then Toyota out marketed Nissan and now Toyota leads the pack. Not saying they're the best but well marketed. I can't stand their SAS system.