A day in history...

Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corporation was seeking a buyer for its U.S. operations, implying the company intends to leave the world's biggest car market.

Mitsubishi Motors' president, Osamu Masuko, traveled to Detroit in January to begin talks with potential buyers during the North American International Auto Show.

Masuko was with Yasushi Ando, head of Tokyo-based investment fund Phoenix Capital Co., that holds a 21.2 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors.

Masuko and Ando met privately with several industry executives, including representatives from U.S. private equity fund Ripplewood Holdings LLC. Ripplewood did not show much interest in Mitsubishi Motors' U.S. operations.

The talks mainly focused on Mitsubishi Motors' assembly plant in Normal, Ill., and its North American sales unit in southern California.

Mitsubishi Motors may have thought of the possibility of total withdraw from the U.S. market, the would be the first major foreign automaker to do so in more than a decade.

French auto manufacturers PSA Peugeot-Citroen SA and Renault SA, and Japanese automaker Daihatsu Motor Co. pulled out in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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