Here's another Wasp pamphlet, came with the second Bellett 1600GT brochure and has price written is dollars, so post-1966 at least.

Most of the English-language brochures aren't 'Australian' as such, but this one definitely is; it's the same format as one of the first brochures I put up and mentions that Mitsubishi are the Australian Concessionaires to Isuzu Motors. They weren't the highest in quality compared to the Japanese and general English-text brochures, but they're definitely very interesting!

Cheers!

That says your brakes should be self adjusting...

Good spot. My arse though. You should have felt how warm the back left was when I got home...!

Sorry I just changed it to 1965, but as you said the price is written in a dollar amount.

Having said that, it's highly likely that there was only one or two runs of these brochures and they would have been the same each time. It's probably that the brochures much like the Wasps themselves would have probably hung around the dealerships for a couple of years.

Allegedly all the Wasps came over in one batch in 1965 but I'm unsure of the exact date. It was Feb 1966 when decimal currency came in, so I'm still betting the brochure itself was printed around 1965 and pulled out of the cupboard when someone came in to have a look at a Wasp a few months later!

I reckon you'd be right Dave...the price is also for a 'steel utility' too, my guess that means 'styleside', not the tray top that's pictured in the pamphlet.

amongst the mountain of brochures and what-not i've got around here (dave knows what i mean!!), i know i've got... somewhere... the pre-decimal currentcy Wasp pricings.

from memory, the cab chassis Wasp (ie: you took it away to get/make your own tray, so like my Wasp) was 846 pound, and the styleside Wasp (like dave's proper "ute") was 946 pound.
going on the policy of doubling the pound value to get the dollar value, as was common in the day, that made the tray $1692 and the ute $1892, which is the same dollar price as you have there.

as for whether there was an optional "Isuzu supplied" tray for the cab chassis, obviously at a cost... who knows, but to be honest tho, i'd seriously doubt if they did offer one.
I was told once that the dealers may have offered a locally built tray with them early on, but this would have come from a "local to the dealer" supplier i'd say, in that, Melbourne cars had a Melbourne built tray, Brisbane cars had a Brisbane built tray, etc, and the suppliers would have most likely been truck body and tray builders.
added to this, people that bought ute's back then were, 99% of the time, always tradey's, not a mix of tradey's and showboats that have ute's nowadays, and the average tradey back then was more multi-skilled than you see today, so building a tray probably wouldn't have been an issue for most that bought them if they wanted something different too.
also, with the original tray's fitted to each Wasp i've seen, while being along the same style and idea, i can't remember seeing one exactly like another, so individual cars had individual tray's, in my experience anyway.

hope this sheds some light.
cheers.

Bembokabellettbloke would probably know... as he bought one brand new back in the day. I saw a photo of it carrying about 2 tonnes of spuds and his had the tie-down railing under the tray like the one in the brochure. Having said that, that was probably a common thing and two different trays could probably look pretty similar.

I've found some more info on the tray body subject, and have proven that research before anything is a valuable thing...

I found one of the references to the Wasp prices from the pre-decimel days that I mentioned earlier, and the original Isuzu stuff with Wasp tray pics all show the same tray as the one above, so I'm thinking at that stage "Hmmm, maybe they did offer a tray option..."

Anyway, another thing I've got here is a photocopy of a Melbourne newspaper ad from the day, with the catch-cry:
"Wasp packs a mighty sting!"
Listed at the bottom is the following:
*Cab & chassis - 848 pound, tax paid. (in other words, no tray at all)
*With steel pick-up body - 946 pound, tax paid. (this was the "ute" body)
*With 6'6" x 5'4" tray body - 946 pound, tax paid. (the illusive tray body)

So there it is!!
As to whether the flat tray shown in the offical Wasp stuff had sides available or not.... again.... ?????????????
The first Wasp I got had a tray on it with sides, but after looking at the photos I have of it when I brought it home, the tray itself definitly wasn't an Isuzu original, so hopefully someone else may know more.
My second Wasp didn't have a tray.

One day, when I don't have anything to do (HA!!!), I'd like to go to the Hearld-Sun archives and go through the newspapers for when Bellett's and Wasp's were new, and get copies of the ads I find. Apparently, this is a common service they provide, and would be fantastic to reference at times, and to keep for the history too.

Isn't research wonderful!!

Craig the Colt maniac from SA has done that with The Advertiser and supplied me with photocopies; I'm yet to get the JPGs off him though.

Lucky for me most of the Bellett stuff in the paper was also Colt stuff!