ABSTRACT
The first automobile in the world was made by N. J. Cugnot, a Frenchman, some 200 years ago in 1769. The automobile market is often described as an oligopoly with product differentiation. Economies of scale in the fields of production, sales, advertising, and consumers' popular support all give overwhelming advantages to large enterprises, thus making the automobile industry highly liable to become an oligopoly industry. Automobile imports were liberalized for the first time in October 1965. By that time the top-level Japanese automobile manufacturers had already been able to compete with US and European automobile manufacturers in productive efficiency and performance capability of passenger cars. Moreover, Japan had been ready to begin full-scale exportation of small passenger cars abroad. In 1971 Japan was the second largest automobile producer in the world – the third in passenger cars next to the United States and West Germany and the first in bus and truck production.
