Importing Cars

While most of the local services cropping up around the imported car industry deal mostly with transportation of the cars once they arrive here, some businesses thrive in other ways.

A few, such as Distribution Auto Services, depend heavily on inspection and installation of parts and accessories once the cars hit the ports.

“All we do is inspect and accessorize,” said company official Bill Sisco. “We install air conditioners, mirrors, stereos, molding, pinstriping . . . all of it.”

Other Japanese makes need similar services.

Nissans, for example, must have pinstripes and other accessories installed or applied locally before being shipped to the dealers.

And Mazdas also require in-port installation of accessories. The Japanese auto maker ships 8,000 to 8,500 cars a month through Port Hueneme, 70 miles north of Los Angeles.

“Actually, we’re adding more jobs than those of the people who install the accessories,” said David Watson, vice president of logistics at Mazda’s Los Angeles office. “The graphics, some radios, the floor mats and the wheel moldings are made by U.S. companies.”

Honda has taken major steps recently to upgrade its method of transporting cars from Japanese plants to the United States.

The manufacturer has signed up steamship lines with modern car-carrying ships to haul the vehicles and is using special trucks to carry them from the plants to the ports in the Japanese cities of Chiba and Yokaichi.

This was not always the case. “In the old days, we used to take anything we could get our hands on,” spokesman Dave Haney said. “The new ships, though, are designed strictly to carry cars.”

Haney likened the new ships to multilevel parking garages. They have “eight to 12 decks, with ramps running from deck to deck.”

He said each ship can hold up to 4,000 automobiles.

Also, the car manufacturer is using special rigs to haul its cars along the narrow Japanese roads. “They have the cab and the chassis attached,” Haney said. “This keeps them from swinging as much.”

The company has lost only one shipment since it began importing cars into the United States.

“It was six years ago,” Haney said. “The freighter caught fire, and we lost all the cars on board.”