The First Mustang Exported To Japan Was The Worst One

When you look up Ford Motor Company of Japan Limited, you find a lot of past-tense phrasing. This company was Ford’s Japanese subsidiary. Knowing that Ford is one of the five biggest automakers in the world, you might find it somewhat surprising to learn that the brand has no real presence in Japan at all these days. What’s more, Ford doesn’t seem to have any interest in going back to Japan in the near future.

When you learn of Ford’s history in the land of the rising sun, it actually becomes a bit less surprising. Ford has had a rough go of it in the past, struggling to sell cars like the Taurus and the Escort to folks in Tokyo and Osaka, but the brand actually has a history in that country dating back more than a century. But, a lot of it is the kind of history that a company might prefer to forget, like a bad breakup. Here’s how Ford tried to establish themselves in Japan with everyone’s least favorite muscle car.

Ford First Went To Japan In The Early 20th Century

Ford’s history in Japan dates all the way back to 1917, when Model Ts were being imported by Sales & Frazar. Many of these early Fords were converted for public transportation. Ford established its own subsidiary in Yokohama in 1924, and wound up having a very strong presence in the country for the next decade.

Japan had its own car companies at this point. In fact, the companies that would become Toyota, Nissan, and Yamaha all date back to this era. But Ford was instrumental in establishing automotive culture after the Great Kanto Earthquake ruined much of Tokyo’s public transportation infrastructure in 1923. Part of the reason Japanese automakers have historically been focused on compacts was to avoid direct competition with the makers of larger American vehicles.

Ford Was Already On The Way Out Of Japan Before World War II

You can easily guess that World War II resulted in Ford completely pulling out of the Japanese market, but you might not know that the Japanese government had already been trying to force American automakers out for years by that point. Ford and General Motors commanded 95 percent of the market in 1930, so, in 1936, a new law was passed dictating that foreign companies were not allowed to increase their annual production. By 1939, Ford of Japan was already a ghost of its former self, and, when Ford officially severed ties with Japan in 1941, there wasn’t much left to pack up.

A Not-So-Glorious Comeback

Since the end of the Second World War, we’ve pretty much been allies with Japan, economically, militarily, even culturally, for about eighty years now. Ford was welcome in Japan following WWII, but the brand returned to find a very different Japan than the one they’d left. By this point, Japan had a booming auto industry all its own, and Ford couldn’t come to terms with native brands like Nissan and Toyota to establish partnerships or distribution deals.

It wasn’t until 1974 that Ford finally managed to get a foothold, importing American cars into Japan, and if you’re a muscle car enthusiast, you know that 1974 is the year they outlawed having fun. The Oil Crisis was in 1973, bringing a sudden halt to the muscle car golden age, and introducing the Malaise era; a time of joyless, underwhelming vehicles like the Ford Mustang II.

To put this into historical perspective, a first-gen Mustang Mach I could hit 60 mph in under six seconds. So yeah, even fifty years ago, twelve seconds was a crappy takeoff time for a muscle car. And the specs we’ve listed here are for the optional V6. The primary engine for the 1974 Mustang II was an inline-four Lima, which would kick out 89 horses on a good day.

It Was Basically Pinto

Besides the fact that Ford had taken America’s most iconic pony car and converted it into an underpowered subcompact, the automaker also made the Mustang entirely unhip, building the II on the same platform as the Ford Pinto, a car that has fair claim to being the worst passenger vehicle ever made. The Mustang II was sold primarily to American military personnel stationed in the country, and it was only imported in its top-spec, which was the V6 model. Ford actually made a V8 model in 1974, packing a 4.9-liter Windsor tuned to 140 hp and hitting 60 mph in a blink-and-you’ll-see-it ten-and-a-half seconds, but this was only available in Mexico for the first model year.

Long story short, 1974 was a poor time for American cars, and Ford really couldn’t have picked a worse year to reintroduce itself to Japan. This is the era that saw Americans leaning towards Japanese vehicles, after all, and even Ford got in on the game, rebadging the Mazda B Series as a Ford Courier for the American market. Any Japanese driver who was able to get their hands on a 1974 Mustang was probably left wondering why Americans made such a big deal out of this thing, especially if they’d already had a chance to test-drive their homegrown Mustang copycat, the 97-hp 1970 Toyota Celica ST.

Ford Never Quite Reclaimed Its Former Glory In Japan

Seeing as American automakers dominated the Japanese domestic market in the 1930s, it’s not hard to guess why Ford was eager to reestablish a presence in the country following World War II. And, following continued struggles to do so, it’s not hard to guess why Ford eventually gave up on the whole thing in 2016, when the brand finally pulled out of Japan for good.

Japan Likes Imports, They Just Don’t Like Ford

The problem isn’t necessarily that Japan doesn’t like imports. Mercedes-Benz saw 67,386 new registrations in Japan in 2016. That same year, the country registered 50,571 BMWs, and even 9,392 Jeeps. Ford only saw 2,225 new cars, trucks, and SUVs registered, making up around 0.1% of the market. A far cry from splitting up 95% of the Japanese auto industry with GM back in the 1930s.

There are plenty of contributing factors to Ford’s failure in Japan. Most Fords are too big for Japanese roads, Japan tends to prefer European imports to American imports, and the brand’s flagship vehicle, the F-150, really has no place in Japan. But the bottom line may be as simple as Ford failing to cater their product to Japanese tastes.

When it comes to the automotive industry, “never say never” is good advice. The global economy is weird, and you never know when a former giant is going to be bought out as a subsidiary of a one-time competitor, or a global chip shortage is going to drive up the prices of used cars. But based on what we know right now, we’d bet on flying cars before we bet on Ford taking another crack at Japan, even with Toyota discussing the possibility of selling Fords in Japan.

Sources: Ford Japan, Japan Today.