batman

The Japanese brands entered the US market with both good pricing and higher quality than the US built units. Their inroads into theUS market were most significant in the late 70's to mid 80's when most US companies were struggling to provide a quality product or in some cases provide equipment to customers/dealers.

Many dealers started dual lining and first put units in their rental fleet and found that there maintance/repair cost were signifcantly lower than there main lines. For example, dealer found that the tires (Japanese made) would last up to 3 time longer than US supplied (primarily due to the higher carbon black used).

As all good things msut come to a pass - it was discovered their pricing in the US market was too good and all were hit with anti dumping suits - hence they started assembling units in the US and price went up. But they had already established a market acceptance of providing high quality products with good product back up - parts, service and distribution (dealers/national account, etc.)