[quote=spdrun]That would be a silly reason to make a wholesale move to TX, when they could just set up a satellite design office there. Besides, not as if there isn’t a market for trucks in rural parts of the West Coast.
.[/quote]
Not silly, but expensive. Why do you think many of the car companies opened design studios / satellite HQs in SoCal a couple decades back? So they could be in tune with the trendsetting market. Turns out running a satellite office in SoCal is an expense not many car companies can maintain.
Some have left (Lincoln-Mercury in Irvine 98-02, Carlsbad Chrysler design studio 83-08 ) but some remain (Nissan Design Studio in San Diego, Honda USA in Torrance, Mazda USA in Irvine).
Flu, interesting article that I agree with for the most part. And the reasons given by the Toyota rep in that article probably did play in to the decision. But I also think the reasons I gave were a big part of the decision also…they just don’t want to come out and say it. There are public and private reasons for everything… 🙂
