Fuji Heavy Industries will stop producing minivehicles after 54 years in February next year to improve operational efficiency, company sources have said.
The company, which began producing automobiles with the Subaru 360 minicar in 1958, already ended the production of Stella minivehicles this month and Sambar commercial vehicles will be its last minicar line, the sources told Kyodo News.
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But it will continue selling minicars made by Daihatsu Motor under an original equipment manufacturing arrangement.
Taking advantage of aircraft manufacturing technology of the firm’s predecessor company in lightening the car body, the Subaru 360 was the first minicar marketed in Japan and became popular nationwide.
The Subaru Sambar, launched about half a century ago, is also the automaker’s mainstay product as it has been employed by the Akabo guild of small trucking firms.
Fuji Heavy sold about 270,000 minivehicles at its peak in fiscal 1990 but the number declined to about 93,000 in fiscal 2010.
It will turn its production lines for minicars to assembling sports cars under joint development with minority stakeholder and Daihatsu parent Toyota, the sources said.
