Maesima

## Maesima Motor Corporation

Maesima's headquarters in Namju, South Kwontyani

**Maesima Motor Corporation** (Anikatian: 매시마 자동차 회사; *Maesima Jadongcha Hoesa*), usually shortened to **Maesima** is a multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Namju, Anikatia.

From the 1980s to 1990s, Maesima had a technical partnership with the Japanese manufacturer Komodo Motors, which acquired a 5% stake in 1980s, and by 1997 owned 25% of the company.

But due to the Asian Financial crisis, Komodo Motors reached an agreement with Spanish car maker Cavallera selling its stake in the Maesima. Cavallera gradually divested its stake in Maesima from 2008 to 2010, severing production as well as development ties.

Maesima has been consistently voted Best Common Car Company for two years consecutively in 2016 and 2017 respectively at the Automation End Of The Year Awards.

## History

### 1930s

In 1932, the Maesim Industrial Company was established by Mae Young-ho and Sim Dong-hyun. It was primarily a manufacturer of steel parts and bicycles. By 1934 it began assembling cars in cooperation with Hunter Motor Company and later established technical cooperation; it was the first automaker in Anikatia that was equipped with modern assembly facilities. It officially changes its name to Maesima Motor Corporation in 1936. However, the company was then merely automotive assemblers, importing parts from overseas partners.

### 1940s

After the beginning of the Second World War led to the shutdown and retooling of factories for military use by the Empire of Japan who had annexed parts of Anikatia. Maesima facilities were redirected to produced weapons for the Japanese military war effort throughout the Second World War. During this period the factories suffered damage from Allied bombing raids.

By 1945 the bulk of the Japanese forces were defeated on the mainland, liberating the captured parts of Anikatia. However, bitter rivalries start up between royalist rebels who had supported Japanese rule and socialist rebels who opposed and fought against Japanese rule led to a short but brutal civil war breaks out and by 1950 communist forces prevail. Anikatia introduces a socialist government.

### 1950s

By 1951 the newly established Democratic Socialist Republic of Anikatia is declared. All private enterprises are nationalised including Maesima Motors. [[Hunter Motor Company pulls out all foreign investment and assistance from the company. The new DSRA is able to survive a fierce assault by western forces it strong battled hardened troops and defensive location along with a much weaker opposition. The government took action to resolve this difficult situation by implementing the "Automobile Industry Restoration Policy", the objective of which was to prevent excessive competition between the major domestic automakers. Additionally, the government postponed and limited foreign imports in response to sanctions and blockages from the Free World.

### 1960s

This was a period of rapid growth and development for Maesima and the Anikatian automotive industry as a whole. Due to the very poor state of the nation's roads following a world war and civil war, auto production was fairly limited, and most production consisted of trucks and off-road vehicles. Maesima like all Anikatian brands received technical assistance from its Warsaw Pact allies. By 1960 Maesima had produced its first fully domestic vehicle the NT-864 light commercial vehicle.

Exports were very limited in the 1960s, but by the 1970s exports of passenger cars began to increase substantially compared to the previous decade. While localisation of auto parts was the major concern during the 1960s, developing a mass production system for the export-oriented industry became the issue during the 1970s. Maesima releases its first car the NV-965 in 1965 as domestic demand begins to increase. This was followed by an expansion into foreign markets by the 1970s which further accelerated growth. Although exports during this were primarily within non-aligned countries or communist allies. Often rebadged as the primary state company the Anikatian Auto Union (AAU) during this period.

### 1970s

Initially, on the international market, Maesima vehicles were successful due largely because of their low price and relative reliability. But with this early success in the export market, Maesima had to place greater effort to produce models, designed fully in-house and manufactured with its own technology, as establishment of a Socialist government had led to a great loss of much foreign investment and assistance that was only partially recovered from assistance and markets of members of allied communist nations and few unaligned allies of such as India that continued trade and assistance.

While exports remained low in the Free World, Maesima found some success in non-aligned and third world markets. But all this was to change as the DSRA begin to introduce Market orientated reforms to the socialist system. Huge reforms were undertaken to liberalise and restructure the economy of the DSRA in 1979 by General Secretary Choi Kyu-sik. This effectively opened the Anikatian market to foreign investment and allowed Maesima to achieve a greater degree of exposure. However, it was quickly discovered that the local vehicles were often not to the standards of quality required in Western markets.

### 1980s

While they were somewhat lacking in most luxuries expected in Western-made cars of its era they were still very engaging to drive and were instead sold as 'no-frills' budget vehicles in several Western nations during the 1980s and 1990s. Nonetheless, this did hurt the Maesima brand somewhat giving it a poor reputation internationally which it has worked very hard to overcome.

The socialist government's efforts to bring costs down for ownership, quality and reliability of vehicles was the key problem. By late 1980s this caught up with the poor reputation Maesima vehicles, sales dropped drastically, and car dealerships started abandoning their franchises. The DSRA government while still socialist in name realising this and pursues market liberalisation at an even greater rate allowing greater private ownership and more foreign investment along with the creation of stock markets. This drove strong growth for the country and helped further investment into quality for the Maesima brand. Because of the reforms opening the nation for trade. Foreign companies began to invest in the country with the Japanese manufacturer Komodo Motors, acquiring a 5% stake in the 1980s. This technical partnership greatly helped the companies expansion into western markets.

### 1990s

But the 1997 Asian Financial crisis hit and while the DSRA was initially able to keep itself above the fray it was forced to devalue its currency to protect its competitiveness with the other nations. The DSRA had made its currency fully convertible only a few years prior to the crisis. The Anikuro currency devalued swiftly and lost more than half its value. As the crisis intensified in the following months when the effects of the devaluation showed up on corporate balance sheets for Maesima. Which had to borrow in foreign currency had to face the higher costs imposed upon them by the Anikuro's decline and many other firms reacted by buying foreign currency through selling Anikuros, undermining the value of the latter further.

The leader of the DSRA sacked the Governor of the Central Bank of Anikatia, but this proved insufficient. The DSRA's booming economy came to a halt. The banking sector was burdened with non-performing loans as its large public corporations had been funding aggressive expansions. During that time, there was a desire to build great conglomerates to compete on the world stage. Many businesses ultimately failed to ensure returns and profitability. The government simply absorbed more and more capital investment and continued to support these firms, while inflation and welfare costs grew considerably. Eventually, excess debt led to major failures and takeovers and the government was forced to take emergency international loans from the IMF. Technical assistance from Komodo had grown and by 1997 it owned 25% of Maesima. By this time the growing 1997 Asian Financial crisis hit throwing Anikatia into political and economic turmoil which led Komodo Motors to quickly sell its stake in the company to Spanish manufacturer Cavallera.

### 2000s

By late 2001 under huge public pressure and after weeks of violence and rioting in the streets the leader of the DSRA was forced to resign, signalling the end of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Anikatia. Major democratic reforms were undertaken which saw the DSRA replaced with the Republic of Anikatia which quickly accepted emergency international loans from IMF. While Maesima was able to avoid bankruptcy finally achieved full private ownership again.

However, the nation successfully transitioned towards a mixed market economy and with the help of IMF loans, which assisted in the restructuring of the automotive industry to make it more competitive in the international export markets. As investment poured into the nation and markets opened, Maesima continued to invest heavily in the quality, design, manufacturing, and long-term research of their vehicles. During this period Cavallera expanded its existing partnership with Maesima resulting in various joint projects and shared development. But as the global financial crisis hit in the fall of 2008, reports emerged that Cavallera was contemplating a sale of its stake in Maesima as a way of streamlining its asset base.

### 2010s

By 2010 Cavallera had sold its remaining shares in Maesima ending production and development ties. The companies long shift towards quality and reliability paid dividends for the brand and by the late 2000s, it had achieved very high ratings on the initial brand quality rankings and export sales begun to recover substantially reflecting this new changes. Today Maesima has taken its position as a producer of quality vehicles in the international market.

## Leadership

* Mae Young-ho (1932-1943)
* Sim Dong-hyun (1943-1950)
* Chae Yun-chol (1950-1973)
* Mae Pong-ju (1973-1989)
* Sim Myong-su (1989-1997)
* Baek Chaek(1997-2001)
* Mae Sang-chul (2001-present)

## Global Sales Figures

 2011
 2012
 2013
 2014
 2015
 2016

## Slogans

* **Maesima Moving Forward!** (1966–1981)
* **Value Assured Motoring** (1982–1997)
* **My Maesima Motoring** (1997–2010)
* **Made for Driving** (2010–present)

## Models

*Further information: List of Maesima vehicles*

## Facilities

*Main article: List of Maesima design and manufacturing facilities*

Most of Maesima's main plant locations are in Anikatia:

* Namju Plant, South Kwontyani production capacity of 600,000 cars per year.

In-house Proving ground location

* Eunchuol Plant, Ulsanghae production capacity of 340,000 cars per year
* Somju Plant, Akyannya production capacity of 550,000 cars per year

Maesima also has facilities in China, Mexico, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam:

* Rayong Plant, Rayong, Thailand
* Wuhu Plant, Wuhu, China
* Hanoi Plant, Hanoi, Vietnam
* Maesima Manufacturing Assembly Plant Alabama, Inc. (MMAPAL), Decatur, Alabama
* Toluca Plant, Toluca, Mexico

## Motorsport

Maesima has been involved in many global motorsports series. They also represent their Sachiuri brand in other sports car racing categories. Maesima also makes engines and other auto parts for other Anikatian motorsports including formula Anikatia and other series. Maesima also runs a driver development programme known as the Maesima Young Drivers Program, which they made for funding and educating future Anikatian motorsports talent.

Kyoungcho Maesima Speedline Racing, with headquarters in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, has been responsible for Maesima's major motorsports development including Formula One, the World Rally Championship, the Le Mans Series, and most recently the FIA World Endurance Championship. Maesima enjoyed some success in these motorsports categories.

## See Also

* Sachiuri
* List of Maesima vehicles