Welcome Vic.
Yes love the Hillmans, before I ever was involved with Isuzu and Belletts my parents owned a 1960 Minx Wagon, great car.
Some people in our beautiful Country want to hide from the link between Hillman/Rootes and Isuzu, pity though, I guess some people can not get over WW2, narrow minded I guess.(at least that is what THEY have said to me).

GREAT CARS ALL OF THEM.
Dave.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. It's encouraged me to try to find out more about the Isuzu-Hillman connection. I'll keep ferreting about until I have enough to justify writing something. One thing is already clear - the early Isuzu Minxes must have been built in Japan from imported parts, given how quickly they got started selling them after signing the agreement with Rootes and the range of models available - they just couldn't have tooled up in 9 months. I'm fairly certain the later ones had a lot more Japanese content.

It's disappointing to hear that there is still some sort of 'anti-Japanese' sentiment in the classic car movement so many years after the war. I do remember back in the 60's/70s when Japanese cars started to be come popular people making nasty comments questioning how come RSL carparks were full of them. I thought we'd grown up a bit since then. And it's just bizarre that BMW drivers are chipping in, given that Germany started the whole shebang and BMW built aircraft engines for the Luftwaffe.

Personally I have no beef with Japanese classics and would happily have a Bellett and a Mazda 1500 and a Datsun 2000 sports if the missus would let me I have fond memories of all those cars. I nearly bought a Florian that was for sale in the ACT a few of years ago, but I already had too many cars and not enough room.

I don't know if any Isuzu Hillmans were brought into Australia, but I would not be surprised. I worked in the ACT motor registry back in the late 60s/early 70s and people brought all sorts of cars in from overseas - even stuff you could easily buy here like Cortinas and Morrises.

Cheers, Vic