With Mitsubishi's recent move, the Grandis - known as the Space Wagon in other markets - will for the first time be manufactured and sold entirely outside Japan.

Similarly, Toyota's Vigo pickup marks the first time the company will make a vehicle entirely outside Japan for the global market.

Toyota's senior managing director Akio Toyoda told financial analysts recently in Bangkok that the company would produce more than half of the 500,000 vehicles to be sold globally every year by 2006 at its two plants in Thailand.

Half of those vehicles would be for the Thai market, he said, adding, "Thailand is more than our global production base, it is also a crucially important market."

Thailand is the largest automobile market in Southeast Asia. It has 1,095 auto parts producers, compared with 385 in Indonesia and 232 in Malaysia.

The country's pickup market is also said to be the second largest in the world after the US, because of the vigour of the grassroots and small-business economy.

Stimulus packages under the pro-business Thaksin administration have spawned demand for pickups, which in Thailand serve business needs as well as family needs.

The moves by Mitsubishi and Toyota mark a decisive shift in Thailand's auto sector, pushing it closer to earning the label "Detroit of the East", after the automobile city in the US.

When legendary Nissan Motors CEO Carlos Ghosn flew into Bangkok some months ago to take over and rejuvenate the company's limping local joint venture, he told journalists, "The most opportunities are here."

"The Thai and South Asian markets are going up, whereas the US, European and Japanese markets are stable."