Following the approval of the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit Project by the Executive Yuan in 1986, a contract of 800 metro cars worth $1 billion - 200 of which were for the new Tamsui-Xindian line and were worth $200 million - was called.
This order was believed to receive multiple bids from many companies; two American bidders that stood out were the Union Rail Car Partnership (URC) consisting of Kawasaki Rail Car, Nissho Iwai American and its subsidiary North American Transit Corporation and the United States Taiwan Transit Group consisting of General Electric, Westinghouse Electric, General Railway Signal, Pullman and WABCO.
The latter, which was formed solely to bid for this project, was seeking to supply both the rolling stock and signalling systems to Taipei and proposed to build the trains at Pullman's plant in Barre, Vermont.
On the other hand, URC, a joint venture of two wholly owned American subsidiaries of Japanese companies, promised that all subsidiary contracting work be done through American source subcontractors, and all construction work be done in the United States, citing the creation of 300 jobs at Kawasaki's Yonkers rail car plant and at least 500 other jobs in the local economy.
Eventually, the URC prevailed and was awarded a contract worth US$170 million to build 132 cars.

In the order of the first 132 cars, Kawasaki built the carbody shells in its main rolling stock plant at Hyōgo, Japan and subsequently shipped them to Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.
URC performed the final assembly of the trains through assembly of the bogies and installation of brakes, propulsion and air-conditioning systems, along with the seats, vertical poles and other interior equipment into the carbody at the 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m²) Yonkers Plant in New York.
The Taiwanese officials having visited Singapore earlier in 1988 to study the city-state's then-newly opened MRT, the trains were built to a very similar design as Singapore's C151 trains, which were built by a consortium of four Japanese rolling stock companies that included Kawasaki.

Despite the promising prospects of the Taipei rolling stock contract for URC, URC was not successful in securing the contract of the next batch of 216 cars; this contract was instead awarded to Siemens of Germany.
Reasons cited by Taipei's Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) for this decision was concern that URC might be just a front for a Japanese company.
This became a point of contention in Yonkers, which had a 7.5% unemployment rate in May 1993, as the manufacturing sector in the United States was facing a decline.
Although US officials tried to convince DORTS to reverse this decision, it was presumably unsuccessful.
Following the approval of the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit Project by the Executive Yuan in 1986, a contract of 800 metro cars worth $1 billion - 200 of which were for the new Tamsui-Xindian line and were worth $200 million - was called. This order was believed to receive multiple bids from many companies; two American bidders that stood out were the Union Rail Car Partnership (URC) consisting of Kawasaki Rail Car, Nissho Iwai American and its subsidiary North American Transit Corporation and the United States Taiwan Transit Group consisting of General Electric, Westinghouse Electric, General Railway Signal, Pullman and WABCO. The latter, which was formed solely to bid for this project, was seeking to supply both the rolling stock and signalling systems to Taipei and proposed to build the trains at Pullman's plant in Barre, Vermont. On the other hand, URC, a joint venture of two wholly owned American subsidiaries of Japanese companies, promised that all subsidiary contracting work be done through American source subcontractors, and all construction work be done in the United States, citing the creation of 300 jobs at Kawasaki's Yonkers rail car plant and at least 500 other jobs in the local economy. Eventually, the URC prevailed and was awarded a contract worth US$170 million to build 132 cars.
In the order of the first 132 cars, Kawasaki built the carbody shells in its main rolling stock plant at Hyōgo, Japan and subsequently shipped them to Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. URC performed the final assembly of the trains through assembly of the bogies and installation of brakes, propulsion and air-conditioning systems, along with the seats, vertical poles and other interior equipment into the carbody at the 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m²) Yonkers Plant in New York. The Taiwanese officials having visited Singapore earlier in 1988 to study the city-state's then-newly opened MRT, the trains were built to a very similar design as Singapore's C151 trains, which were built by a consortium of four Japanese rolling stock companies that included Kawasaki.
Despite the promising prospects of the Taipei rolling stock contract for URC, URC was not successful in securing the contract of the next batch of 216 cars; this contract was instead awarded to Siemens of Germany. Reasons cited by Taipei's Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) for this decision was concern that URC might be just a front for a Japanese company. This became a point of contention in Yonkers, which had a 7.5% unemployment rate in May 1993, as the manufacturing sector in the United States was facing a decline. Although US officials tried to convince DORTS to reverse this decision, it was presumably unsuccessful.
Taipei Metro C301