Auto Industry in Chile

Chile is a small country with no longer history in manufacturing automobiles.

In the mid 1990s, the automobile manufacturing sector kept booming until the late 1990s, when the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis seriously hit the country and also helped Isuzu’s LUV dominate the local total production, which was exported to the other neighboring countries such as Mexico.

Automotores Franco Chilena, a branch of PSA stopped its production of Peugeot 206 in 2004 due to a new trade agreement between the Andean countries and European countries. To bring the car model from Europe is cheaper than from Chile.

Thus, Isuzu’s LUV was left as the only car model made in Chile.