Thailand second only to US in pickup production

AP/Houston Chronicle:

Every 60 seconds, a shiny new pickup rolls off the assembly line at Toyota's factory outside Bangkok, a third of them bound overseas for places like Australia, Europe and the Mideast.

By January, Toyota Motor Corp. will complete another, larger plant to make pickups nearby, adding to the 15 auto assembly plants, mostly Japanese, already here.

Thailand has carved out a niche for itself: Asia's pickup truck capital.

Thanks to careful government planning and Japanese investment, Thailand has become the world's No. 2 maker of pickups after the United States, making the Asian financial crisis that erupted here nine years ago seem like a distant memory.

Auto production has nearly doubled since 2002 to 1.1 million vehicles last year — three-quarters of them pickups, mostly the smaller, 1-ton variety.

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This is not your fathers Siam. I am not sure what the writer's experience with pickups may be but a 1-ton truck is the largest pickup, not smaller. A half ton pickup is the most common. We Texans know our trucks.