OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2012. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI), the manufacturer of Subaru automobiles, today announced that the production of mini commercial vehicle "Sambar" ended at the Gunma Main Plant (Ota-city, Gunma Prefecture, Japan), marking the end of all Subaru mini vehicle productions in Japan. FHI will now renew the mini vehicle production line for the production of passenger cars. Production of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 are scheduled to begin in March. In addition, FHI will produce the Impreza at the same plant by March 2013 at the same plant.

FHI started automotive vehicle production in 1958 with the mini car "Subaru 360", a vehicle acclaimed as a Japanese national car. Since then a total of nine models (Sambar, Rex, Pleo, Stella etc.) have been made with a total of 7,968,000 produced over 54 years. All Subaru mini cars were well received with their unique engineering and product features such as 4-wheel independent suspension, 4 cylinder engine, CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) and 4-wheel drive system.

Prior to the end of the Sambar production, a line-off farewell ceremony took place with FHI employees, executives and former employees. At the ceremony, President Yoshinaga said, "Seeing many people come together to mark the end of Sambar production, we are happy to have had such a great product in our line. We would like to appreciate our customers and everyone whoever was related to the Sambar business."

According to the agreement to expand cooperative ties with Toyota Motor Corporation and Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd. (Daihatsu) in April 2008, FHI decided to focus its management resources to the development and production of passenger vehicles that feature Subaru’s core technologies such as the Horizontally-Opposed engine. Since then FHI has phased out mini vehicle productions. FHI will continue to market mini vehicles on an OEM basis from Daihatsu in Japan.

FHI offers "Enjoyment and Peace of Mind" to its customers through the Subaru brand statement "Confidence in Motion" and its consistent approach to "Engineering excellence".