Former Austin Rover Japan President Cedric Talbot tells the remarkable inside story of how the Mini overcame regulation, corporate reluctance and some very British obstacles to become a huge success in Japan. (AROnline - 21st Sep 2026)
"After the closure of the MG works at Abingdon in 1980, BL Japan had nothing to sell but Jaguar. The only cars that could meet the Japanese emission standards were the US spec Jaguars, TR7s, MGBs and Midget. The TR7 wasn’t a success there and had been withdrawn. We brought in a Rover 3500 for evaluation but it was not well received, so MG was our bread and butter. Something had to be done.
Japanese enthusiasts loved the Mini and our own dealers were bringing them in as ‘grey imports’ from dealers in the UK, in quite large numbers. We couldn’t do it ourselves because of ‘type approval’, usually known as homologation. The official importer had to provide a test car which had done 50,000 kms to prove the durability of the catalytic converters, not to mention a mountain of test results and paperwork.
After approval we could import any number of cars. However the grey importers just took each car to the local equivalent of the MoT station and as long as it passed a simple emissions test ‘on the day’, it could be registered. What was needed was some halfway house where a limited number of official imports could be registered based on testing one car without the durability requirement. Also we needed the safety standards of the EEC to be accepted by the Japanese government.
All a big ask, but at that time there was huge pressure from the USA and Europe on the Japanese to open up their car market. President Trump is still trying. There actually was such a low volume system in existence for very small manufacturers such as Morgan who were selling 30 cars a year. I was the chairman of the European importers’ committee and we made a proposal to the government to accept 1,000 units a year of any model on this basis. To our great surprise they accepted. Now we had to deliver the goods."
The Full Story here:-
https://www.aronline...-cedric-talbot/
Edited by mab01uk, Today, 10:02 PM.
