Here are some pictures of the 66 sedan I've come across.. I haven't seen it in person yet... but I can tell from the photos it's quite ruff.. (I've also never known a car to look WORSE in the pictures and better in person)





Cheers,

Andrew

Wow... you mentioned yo wanted a project! That's a hell of a project!

The tail light lenses will be a pain to find in good condition as they are even getting scarce over here!

Let us know how you go... Might be a parts car for the next one you find

Cheers,
Ross.

Yeah, it definitely has parts car written all over it. I imagine the underside has a serious case of the tin worm (which you almsot expect).. but it also looks like the left quarter panel is completely shot..

I just want to make sure my understanding is correct.. the only way to get a quarter panel for a Ballett is to cut one off another car, correct?

Rear quarters are welded as with most cars and front quarters are just bolted on. No cutting required.

I think the others were being a little over zealous with the cutting comments

Cheers,
R.

What I meant was, I'd likely have to have a quarters cut off a better shell likely in Australia and shipped here to weld on my rotten Canadian one... might as well ship the whole shell!

I'll see if the seller will sell it for a reasonable price.. I'm thinking it's not worth a heck of a lot more than $300 as Belletts are unknown and the car is pretty tatty / missing a lot of parts.

It might be savable, but looks like it would take a whole lot of bondo!

Sounds like a plan. If you want a hand tracking down a car in Oz just let us know and we'd be happy to help out.

Between everyone on here we should be able to find every sedan part needed, just don't ask for GT parts... They are a little rarer!

Good luck with that one and fingers crossed another one comes up soon that is in better nick!

Oh, and just a side note... That car above looks like it might have a 'deluxe' badge on the boot? Well something on the right side of the boot anyway

Cheers,
Ross.

I don't have the funds to be shipping anything car sized across the ocean at the moment.. It is a deluxe.. should I be excited?

Deluxe's, especially of the first model are pretty light on the ground over here... PR91 would be able to supply numbers but I'm sure they're not too many at all. Not sure what extra's you actually get on the tear drop model ('64/'65) (it would be cigarette lighter, heater etc) but just the badges are worth something to Bellett enthusiasts.

My flat light sedan ('69 model) is a deluxe and gets a cigarette lighter, heater, badges stainless steel strip on the B pillar.... and not a lot else. At the end of the day though, with only two spec levels it's always good to have the higher one

Keep us posted.

Cheers,
Ross.

The early Deluxe had some great extras like an ash tray for back seat passangers, two speed wipers alloy trim on the b pillars full carpet. I would think having a chat with the Finnish boys would be a good place to start with a restoration. As they have had to deal with salted roads and snow fatigue in their cars they have probably attempted restos like this before.

Living in Canada, I've seen my fair share of rotten cars.. even owned a few!

I'm not particularly scared of them, it's just that even if you can get the repair panels you need easily.. it ends up costing a lot of money and time to repair something that's pretty far gone. Certainly not impossible, but the welding consumables, etc add up

The seller wants $1250 CAD for it at the moment, which is ridiculous.. so unless the price comes down a lot I'm not interested..

I do know of another 4 door in a junkyard not too far from here.. but the picture i've seen shows it sunk pretty deep in a field.. not a great starting place either.. although it might have the quarter panels needed.. who knows!

There's also a 1964 Epic Envoy (Vauxhall Viva) not far from here.. in much better nick. They are neet cars. quite similar looking to a bellett actually.. just not as refined. I really like the idea of IRS in a 60s sedan

As for the deluxe options, I doubt the carpet is in great shape! Almost no one smokes anymore and variable speed wipers are pretty easy to add to a car

Cheers,

Andrew

I figured why not add a picture of the Envoy

I wish it didn't have vent windows.. 40+ year old cars have enough weather stripping problems without them!

Hey that is a bit Bellett-shaped, especially in the droopy boot (uh, trunk?) shape. I've seen them here (Oz) but I think they were a Cresta and I don't think they had the vertical lights, just the small ovoid ones that are involved with that bulging crease-line under the fuel flap.

On Deluxes, my early non-deluxe sedan gets single speed wipers, but has a cigarette lighter and a rear ashtray, albeit in the back of the bench seat as it's a column-shiftus variant.

I reckon the big differences would have been double speed wipers, the carpets, stainless trims, more sound deading (eg yours is pretty quiet inside, Ross!) and probably a standard heater, although a lot of the non-Deluxes got heaters as well.

Not that I'm an expert, but yeah it's amazing the few differences really... I mean, compare a late model car like a Commodore Omega (base model) with a Calais (top-spec luxury model) and there's heaps of trim differences, climate, alloys - I mean the list just goes on! Oh yeah, Deluxes got full wheel covers!

Yes, in Finland that Bellett would be a good project and it´s a deluxe with blue windows! We got only 250 deluxes to Finland. Those cars were 1966 deluxes and went first to Sweden. The swedish company went down and the finnish importer bought the cars to Finland. Then they were sold here as 1967 deluxes.

I have a couple of that kind of tail lights in quite good condition if someone needs.

Antti,

How about quarter panels? It looks like that car has gotten past the "surface rust" stage

I'll do my best to get this car back to my garage and see what happens with it.. maybe it can help someone else who needs parts.. but right now the price is ridiculous.. and we'll see if the owner comes around.. I know what it feels like to think you've got something that's worth a fair bit.. unfortunately only to you!

Cheers,

Andrew

It´s hard to find good front fenders here. But you can find good rear fenders with only the lowest back part rusted. One of our club member, Ari Nöjd, who sometimes visits these pages, makes those lowest rear fender parts from glass fiber. Casa Jaar in Honduras has new rear fenders but not front ones.

Many would like to buy those tinted deluxe windows, chromed side window frames and deluxe badges.

Antti,

I am going to try and purchase the car if the price becomes reasonable. If I bought it I wouldn't be against selling Deluxe badges etc. It might be hard to ship glass however, and I would need replacement glass if I'm going to fix this (might be too far gone anyways)

Do you have a specifc person you contact at Casa Jaar? I looked at their web page and tried to fill out the contact form.. not sure if it worked. I'd like to know how much they want for their rear fenders and see what else they have.

I'm not against used rear fenders as long as they aren't being cut off a better car than what they are going to be put on! Seems very counter productive to me

I would like to know how much they are selling rear quarter panels for.

I'm going to get in touch with the Junk Yard that I know has a bellett as well.. and see what they want for it.. who knows, hopefully they don't think they have gold.

Cheers,

Andrew

Here is a picture of the one in the Junkyard.. the picture is 10 years old!

It is also a 1966 Deluxe

Guillermo J. Jaar can speak english. The others mostly spanish. They have a lot of parts. Also parts that are not available from Japan anymore. We have ordered parts from Casa Jaar about 10 years. I´m sure that if you have contacted them by their website they will asnwer you. They are very helpful and willing to sell those parts because there is only few Belletts left in Honduras. And as I said, they have lots of parts. I started the co-operation when I was the president of Isuzu Owners´ Club ry Finland and when I "retired" after being the president 21 years, our club sold all the parts we had to Ari Nöjd and his Fun Motors. Ari has ordered parts from Honduras several times.

That other Bellett looks good. But of course 10 years have not made it better..

Hudson,

Try this : casajaar@hn2.com
Ask Guillermo J.Jaar and say hello from Ari from Finland. I haven´t contact them for a few years. Once I asked something just to keep in touch but I didn´t got answer. Hope you´ll get.
And like Antti said, they got ALOT of parts! They seems not even know what they have !
One problem is that you cant ask parts with their name, you must know the part numbers.
And part number changes...
And they got most late model parts.
You may make here a list what you need and I try to search part numbers for you.

Ari

Ari and Antti,

Thanks the information!

The car pictured up to it's rocker panels in mud apparently still exists and the owner doesn't think it's gold!

The asking price is a bit high, but not stupid high.. and maybe when spring comes I can pick the car up for a reasonable sum.

Judging by the picture, I'm assuming the car has absolutely no floor/frame structure to speak of.

So if everything works out to plan I'll pick it up in a couple months.. at which point the deluxe specific stuff will likely be available.

What a terrible way to park a car!!!