ABSTRACT
The South Korean automobile industry was simply not on the world manufacturing map in the 1970s. During the two following decades, however, it has grown extraordinarily rapidly. Between 1975 and 1996, its production increased by a factor of 75, from 37,000 units to over 2.8 million units. At the end of this period, South Korea was ranked 5th in the world automobile industry, with a 5.3 per cent share of global production, and automobile firms were planning massive new investments.
