Asian Automakers Not Necessarily Invincible in U.S. Asian automakers are sometimes viewed as being invincible in the American market, but as Suzuki showed this week, that is not always the case. On Monday, the American Suzuki Motor Corporation filed for bankruptcy with $346 million in debt, and the brand's new cars will no longer be sold in the United States. The company remains a major force in other markets, including Japan and India, and will continue to sell other products in the United States, motorcycles among them. But several other low-volume players have also stopped selling their branded cars, including Isuzu, Daewoo and Daihatsu. Suzuki cited exchange rates that make it hard to be profitable, and the high cost of meeting regulations and setting up a distribution network. Those other nameplates had similar challenges. "It's difficult for any small car company to get a footprint in the United States," Jack Nerad, an executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book, said in a telephone interview. We're a big country, with more than 300 million people, and it's hard to buy media and build awareness. Isuzu models included the Trooper and Ascender S.U.V.'s and the Impulse coupe. The company shut down its American sales operation in early 2008, having sold only 7,098 vehicles in 2007. Those with long memories will recall the company's "Joe Isuzu" commercials, which greatly increased the company's profile. Isuzu's sales peaked at 127,630 in 1986. And the sleazy car salesman Joe, played by the actor David Leisure, was enough of a celebrity for Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate, to say during the 1988 debates, "If Bush keeps it up, he's going to be the Joe Isuzu of American politics." Daihatsu's cars, which included the 3- and 4-cylinder Charade (a competitor for the Geo Metro) and the Rocky S.U.V., were already fading memories by then. The Japanese company stopped selling to Americans in 1992, after sales plunged 40 percent in 1991. Daihatsu had company then - Sterling from Great Britain and Peugeot from France had recently given up on the American market. Mr. Nerad recalls that Korea's Daewoo, which briefly marketed such cars as the Nubira and Lanos under its own brand name through the 2002 model year, "had pretty grandiose ideas about marching into the American market and getting a large volume of sales in a short time. The company talked about 300,000 vehicles annually in the first year or two in the marketplace, which just wasn't going to happen. Daewoo didn't entirely disappear from the American market. The assets of Daewoo Motors were acquired by General Motors in 2002. Rebranded as GM Korea, it went on to develop cars now sold globally, including the Chevrolet Spark and Sonic. According to G.M., the Korean operation produces one out of every four Chevrolets sold worldwide. But the Daewoo brand name is gone, even on cars sold in Korea. Will other Asian automakers be leaving the United States market? Mitsubishi Motor Corporation, the remaining Japanese automaker with the fewest sales in the United States, says no. "We have no intention whatsoever of withdrawing from the U.S. market," the company's president, Osamu Masuko, told Automotive News in an interview Tuesday. The U.S. market is a very important market.