Honda started making cars in North America in 1982, when 1,000 units were manufactured in Marysville, Ohio. The following year was the first full year and 55,000 Accord cars rolled off the production line. The Civic joined it in 1986 and by the end of that year, Accords started to be made in Ontario, Canada. All up, 240,000 cars were made in North America for that year. From there other notable dates:
1989: Ontario switched to Civic production, and the East Liberty Plant, Ohio was opened in the US for mainly Civic manufacture.
1990: The 500,000 mark was passed in production with 330,000 Accords and 210,000 Civics.
1996: Acura production commenced in East Liberty and Canada. Modest manufacturing volume of the Accord also started in El Salto, Mexico.
1998: Acura manufacture starts to switch from East Liberty to Maysville, Ohio and the Oddessy production is up and running in Ontario.
2000: One million cars are produced in North America for the first time.
2007: More models are added in the 21st century, as are new factories and production reaches a peak of 1,430,000 units.
2009: The year finished just over the million mark with the recession biting hard.
It’s amazing how things moved so quickly with production volumes for Honda Nth America. All Japanese brands have gone down the same road to avoid a consumer backlash against too many imported cars. Most of the 21 million cars that have been made up to now by Honda North America have been for their domestic markets, with exports amounting to only a few percent of that total.
What it means to me: The Japanese car manufacturing invasion was only possible due to the complacency of the ‘Big Three’ US car makers.
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