If the Japanese still drive on the left and therefore manufacture right hand drive cars why if the Japanese have their cars do we in the UK have to wait so long?

I can understand those countries waiting where left hand conversions are required (ie US) but that does not include the UK.

rael

Because we are all one glorious Europe.... and the rest of them are LHD I suspect.
It is rather annoying though.

Plus we always have to wait until after the US - why do you think they have regions on DVDs ? So USA can get them first and we cannot play them. Now in my mind that is just not right - but hey !

Probably because there gona make more money selling cars in the US. US is much bigger so they'll sell more there too.

Were getting (IMO) a much better deal than the US apart from the lower power.

Don't forget the time it takes a ship loaded with cars to get from Japan to Europe. Must be a month or two.

Shipping time I understand but they should be able to export from day one. As said presumably the US market gets theirs first as its a bigger market although I am not sure that should impact on UK sales.

rael

The US has had the 350z for AGES, and there buying so many of them that Nissan delayed its launch in Euro/uk.

US is the primary market for any car manufacturer.

plus we have lots of european regulations that they have to allow for. That probably makes our cars more similar to mainland europes LHD cars than to Japans RHD cars.

And has been stated, the US and Japan are the most important markets for Japanese car makers.

In mainland europe the 'local' manufacturers have a massive market share (renault, citroen, fiat, peugeot, VW, etc).

In Britain it's mostly a Ford/GM market.

We just don't do the volumes over here.

Guys,

You only have to look where the handbrake is to know the primary market.... Otherwise I think the Japanese would have put it out of the way on the left.....

Ed

Ed,

damn i hoped the hand brake thing was just a glitch with the prototype models.

Some of the pic's on the web site were simply mirrored to make them look like RHD's (mazda logo back to front).

I hope you are right but I think this is also present in the other Mazda's. Handbrake turns will require rethinking!

rael