Thailand is a great place to source automotive products in the following categories: Automotive Body & Panels Manufacturer, Automotive Brake Components, Automotive Suspension Parts, Automotive Electrical & Electronics, Automotive Upholstery, Automotive Batteries, Automotive Car Care Products, Automotive Parts, Automotive Glass, Automotive Accessories, Automotive Plastic Parts, Automotive Engines & Engine Parts, Automotive Tires & Rubber Parts and Automotive Air Conditioning,Automobile Chassis

I was driving down to Pattaya along the new Chonburi bypass. A new billboard caught my eye 'Welcome to Detroit of the East'  With the problems that Detroit is not enjoying right now I smiled and notched this up to another case of Amazing Thailand. Along the other side of the highway a long convoy of articulated trucks carrying hundreds of new cars headed for delivery to the port of Laem Chabang and onwards to - who knows where.

Yes Thailand is fast becoming a major hub for the production of automobiles and the plethora of automotive parts manufacturers who are supporting this booming industrial sector.

Thailand does not have a native automotive industry. There is no home grown mode of transport per se apart from the elephant and the three wheeled Tuk-Tuk. It was the Japanese who first stepped in to assemble locally their ranges of pick-up trucks. This sector is still going strong with the market leaders Toyota, Nissan and Isuzu being challenged nowadays by the Japanese wanna be's Mazda and the mighty Ford Corporation who have never really found a place in the Thai auto market.

The social structure in Thailand is very different from the west. For a long time Thai society was dominated by a two tier social hierarchy. The rich and the not rich. The not rich who constituted and still does 95% of the Thai population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. For transportation they use motorcycles and curious mechanical buffaloes to carry out their daily tasks.