Hi,

I just found this forum while browsing for sites related to Isuzu history. I don't actually own a Bellett although I am pretty familiar with them having rallied in them during the early 1970s. What I do own is a Hillman, which you might know is a close relative or even ancestor of the Bellett. Isuzu manufactured Hillmans under licence from the Rootes group between 1953 and about 1962, before introducing their own car designs. If you compare a Hillman Minx motor from this period with the Bellett 1500 you will see a very obvious family resemblance. The following is a link to a picture from an Isuzu-Hillman brochure which I scanned recently. I'm currently having this brochure translated.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o262 ... teCrop.jpg

Anyway, as well as being interested in Belletts in general, I'm also interested in chasing down any history of the Isuzu company from this era. If I can assemble enough info I'll write some kind of article on it (I have had a couple of articles in Australian Classic Car magazine. I also have some stories from my period rallying Belletts that you might find interesting and amusing.

Cheers,

Vic Hughes,
Canberra

great photo of the hillman mums about to open a collectors bottle of coke and dads creamated the steaks the greatest thing about this photo is the rainbow in the background . thanks for your imput and look forward to all the bellett shots as well cheers dave in qld

Hi Vic,

Welcome to the forum! Put up any and every photo you have of your cars from back in the day; please!

Cheers,

Dave

Welcome Vic,

Hope you enjoy the forum.

Neil
Darwin

Hi Vic

A warm welcome to the Forum and hope you enjoy the banta that occurs on these pages.
We are all interested in most types of classic vehicles and look forward to you submitting your stories and photos.

Cheers

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.

Hey there Vic.
Great pic - early Bellett Express!
Do you know if Aus got any of the Isuzu produced Minxes? Sometimes wondered about that.
I'm not so far away - at Rye Park.
Yeah, please show us your cars in the 'other cars' section. All interesting.
Welcome & cheers, Matt.

Welcome to the forum.

And yes I have to admit I like Hilman's. Probably because a friend of mine raced a 265 6cyl version

Cheers
Rob

dave, sounds like youre not the only one that gets the "dont mention the war!" attitude mate....!
the B.S. that ive encountered while trying to be involved in the classic car scene down here from american and european car owners (even from a BMW owner, but last time i checked, BMW's were german, and didn't they side with japan in the war and do enuf "bad" things of their own.......................) is crazy, so ive given up on it and now just 'hang out' with other classic japanese car owners. the problem is that it happens far too often, and the whole classic car scene, not just the classic japanese stuff, suffers as a result.
anyway, i reckon it's their loss, not ours!
cheers.

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

vic, if u google around, u can find alot of history about the isuzu-built minx's. believe it or not, the toyota museum in japan has a brilliant website in english that gives some great info too.
they were indeed built from CKD (complete knock down) kits early on, and then were isuzu built, and they added and changed their own bits and pieces as time went on. from memory, the minx hit japan around 1953-1955, with the model code of PH10 being used for alot of them.
as u'd know, the bellett engine is very similar to a hillman unit, but not much is interchnageable.
cheers.
brett.