jamtulenmurah
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Kilang Kenderaan Pertama Di Malaysia
Bedford Harimau '' GM Malaysia '' (1974)
GM did, in fact, have an assembly operation in Malaysia for a while. In 1971, it bought over the Capital Motors Assembly plant in Johore and made models like the Opel Kadett, Manta and T-Car Gemini as well as the Holden Kingswood. But as the Japanese tide swept over the region and displaced European and American brands, the company lost interest and ceased direct involvement in 1980, selling off the plant to Oriental Holdings which would use it to make Hondas.
In as far as products are concerned, GM can lay claim to having offered a regional model well before Honda and Toyota came out with their ‘Asian Cars’ (the City and Soluna/Vios). In the 1970s, it developed a model called the Harimau which was fairly basic in concept and used the platform of the Vauxhall Viva van (later, to address problems of heavy loads, it had an Isuzu powertrain). The Harimau was also produced in the Johor plant and priced cheaply, it sold well in rural areas.
However, the timing was a bit off as the Harimau concept was based on meeting the needs of an infant economy which was more dependent on agricultural resources. Malaysia’s economy was advancing briskly and while affordability was still important, consumers expected more from their vehicles and the Japanese were better at meeting those expectations. Furthermore, a salesman for the Harimau recalls that GM offered a rather small profit margin to dealers at that time, giving them little incentive to push it.
As far back as 1974, GM Malaysia assembled the Bedford Harimau, a utilitarian truck developed specifically for emerging markets in ASEAN. Older readers, especially those who grew up in smaller towns may recall seeing this odd looking truck.
PS: Sapa rajin tolong translate ke Bahasa Melayu. Aku malas cam biasa.
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