During most of the 1970s and well into the 1980s, each of the three major Detroit vehicle manufacturers partnered with Japanese companies to import small pickups to be sold under their own brands in North America. GM and Ford started it all in 1972, when Isuzu Fasters were sold here with Chevrolet LUV badges and the Mazda B-Series appeared on our shores as the Ford Courier. Here’s a loaded example of the latter type, found in a Colorado self-service yard recently.
The Toyo Kogyo Company of Hiroshima (formerly known as the Toyo Kogyo Cork Company) began using the name of the ancient Persian god Ahura Mazdā on vehicles when it built its first three-wheeled truck in 1931. The first Mazdas to be sold in the United States appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with both Wankel and piston power under their hoods (sadly, Mazda kei cars were not imported).
The smallest U.S.-market pickup (that wasn’t based on a car chassis) built by the Ford Motor Company at that time was the F-100, and the suits in Dearborn were dismayed to see that Americans were buying ever-larger numbers of small Japanese pickups, particularly the Toyota Hilux and Datsun 520. Developing a brand-new competitor from scratch would take too long and cost too much, so Ford made a deal with Mazda to bring the second-generation B-Series pickup over with left-hand-drive and Courier badges.
Ford first used the Courier name on its sedan deliveries during the 1950s, so it made sense to revive it for its new small truck. The Courier was sold here through the 1982 model year, after which it was replaced by the homegrown-in-Michigan Ranger.
Of course, Mazda sold the B-Series with its own badging in North America, so shoppers could compare prices, warranties, and so on between the B and its Courier twin (though you couldn’t get the Wankel-powered REPU as a Courier). The B-Series remained available here through 1993, after which there was a Dearborn/Hiroshima badge-engineering switcheroo that saw the Ford Ranger sold as the Mazda B2300/B3000/B4000.
As the 1970s became the 1980s, the battle for minitruck shoppers’ dollars got tougher in North America. The Toyota Hilux, Datsun 520/620/720, and Chevy LUV/Isuzu P’up had been duking it out with the Courier/B-Series all along, but then Chrysler began importing the Mitsubishi Forte with Dodge D-50/Ram 50 and Plymouth Arrow Truck badging as 1978 models and Volkswagen of America introduced the Rabbit Pickup the following year.
Chrysler even developed a front-wheel-drive pickup from the versatile Omnirizon platform, selling Dodge Rampages and Plymouth Scamps for the 1982-1984 model years (the Scamp was only sold in 1983). But the American minitruck boom wasn’t to go on for much longer, fading away during the 1990s. It was fun while it lasted!
This truck is powered by this 1.8-liter SOHC straight-four. Mazda was still selling its U.S.-market B1600 with the 1.6-liter engine for 1976, but the B1800 would appear as a 1977 model.
The air cleaner has a winter/summer valve.
Here’s something you won’t see very often in penny/yen/pfennig-pinching 1970s minitrucks: an automatic transmission! This added $301 to the $3342 base price of the ’76 Courier (that’s about $1740 and $19,323 in 2025 dollars, respectively).
This truck is in very nice shape, with very little rust and a decent interior. I find Couriers regularly during my junkyard travels, and most of them are much more thrashed than this one.
Four-wheel drum brakes were rare on new U.S.-market vehicles in 1976 (I believe the Type 1 Volkswagen Beetle was the final holdout), but this truck has them.
We can’t know if the final mileage was 95,264 or 495,264; if I had to guess, I’d say 195,264. Believe it or not, the biggest odometer reading I’ve ever found on a junked Mazda was 393,584 miles on a 1985 RX-7.
Mazda updated the B-Series for 1977, so this truck is from the final model year of the second-gen B.
From big cabovers to the little Courier, Ford had your truck needs covered in 1976.
As you’d expect, the Courier name survived Down Under (as we can see in this blatant ripoff of the New Zealand-market Crumpy and Scotty Toyota Hilux commercials). You can buy a new Transit Courier right now, in fact.
Dang, this is sad to me. This is a truck on my bucket list, but every one I find down here in the humid deep south is always very rusty.
I don’t think I have seen one of these in the wild before. They would not have survived Chicago winters very well.
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