The First Japanese Car Built in North America Is a Forgotten Isuzu Sedan

In 1981, the passing of a voluntary export restraint on the importation of Japanese automobiles forced that nation’s automakers to establish assembly plants in America. Honda was first, and in 1982, an Accord rolled off the line in Marysville, Ohio. That Honda was the first Japanese car to be built in the US., and Toyota and the rest followed suite. However, there’s a footnote to that historic footnote. That Accord might be the first Japanese car built in the US, but it’s not the first Japanese car in North America as a whole.

Nearly a decade and a half earlier, the very first Japanese car to be made across the Pacific rolled off a line in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was an Isuzu Bellett, a sedan you have perhaps never even heard of, and it was important for two reasons: First, this little car was part of the embryonic beginnings of Toyota Canada, just now celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. It is the spiritual ancestor to the eleven millionth vehicle (a RAV4) built by Toyota Manufacturing Canada‘s Ontario factories this year. It is the pioneer.

So it’s historically significant. But the second consequential thing about this little Isuzu is that it is absolutely delightful.

This example is one of the earlier Canadian-spec Isuzu Belletts that was imported before the domestic production run began, and it is something of a hodgepodge of parts owing to the extreme rarity of spares and replacements. Found in BC’s Fraser Valley in derelict condition, current owner Ed Theobald has restomodded it into a lively tyke that’s like a 7/8ths-scale Alfa-Romeo Giuila. Theobald runs it in classic-car touring events regularly with his son, and when I caught up to him he had driven it over to a local racetrack where he was helping a friend sort out a freshly built Triumph racing sedan.

This restomodded Isuzu is such a fun collection of bits; it’s like a spot-the-difference puzzle for classic car enthusiasts. The brakes are TR4, the wheels are off a Saab 900, it has MG indicator lights, and the seats are an unclaimed set originally ordered for an Intermeccanica 356 replica. The front bumperettes are from a Camaro, of all things.

Possibly the weirdest part is under the hood: a Mazda 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine. Nothing odd about that? Theobald says he got it not from a Miata but from a fellow took it out of a mid-1990s Lotus Seven replica built by a factory in Japan. This means that it could very well be the original powertrain from a Mitsuoka Zero1, a possibility that’s so unlikely you just want to believe it.

Painted in Harbor Blue and fitted with tan interior panels crafted by an upholsterer who worked with Intermeccanica, this Bellett is just a lovely little car. It doesn’t look Japanese at all but European, specifically Italian. You can really see the Alfa influence in the rear roofline and the way the bodywork slightly tucks over the rear wheels.

Theobald says that he does rarely run into people who remember the Bellett, although it was sold in very limited quantity—about 2500 between 1965 and 1968. Possibly what’s most memorable is the amount of period advertising that featured the Bellett, praising its efficency and speed, and pointing out that it didn’t look as weird as a Volkswagen. Seriously! One bit of copy reads, “Your neighbours won’t make fun of you.”

The Bellett was never sold in the U.S., and most enthusiasm surrounding it comes from Australia or the car’s home market of Japan. The coupe was available in a very collectible GT-R version, complete with a 1600cc twin-cam engine. Only 1400 of these were built. They are quite valuable, and they are the first Japanese cars to wear a GT-R badge.

Before building the Bellett, Isuzu produced the Hillman Minx under license with the Rootes Group. This beginning is similar to Nissan’s early partnership with Austin, but as the Japanese automaking industry grew, Isuzu wanted to build its own cars.

The first of these was the Bellel sedan, a pretty conventional mid-sizer. Isuzu literally translates to “fifty bells,” a name taken from a river which flows past a large shrine that has fifty ceremonial bells in it. The Bellel is Bell plus L, the Roman numeral for fifty. The Bellett is simply a smaller Bellel.

The origin of the car’s styling is a mystery. At the time, it was pretty common for Japanese automakers to reach out to the Italian coachbuilders for assistance. Over at Prince (later absorbed by Nissan) the 1960 Skyline Sport coupe featured a design by Giovanni Michelotti and was debuted at the Turin motor show. The designers of the Bellet could have been inspired by Italian design, or perhaps they called in some help.

Whatever the case, the engineering is as much a part of the appeal of the Bellett as the look. In a time when Nissan and Toyota were perfectly happy to just go with a live axle rear, the Bellett had an elegant semi-trailing-arm, independent rear suspension supplemented with a transverse leaf spring. It wasn’t the inexpensive option, it was the best—the type of engineering-first decision you might have seen from Lancia.

The Bellett’s arrival in Canada is a somewhat convoluted tale involving Studebaker’s Canadian operations and Toyota Canada’s first existence as independent distributor Canadian Motor Industries (CMI). CMI started out importing and selling Toyota Crowns and Land Cruisers in Canada, and it also had a deal with Isuzu. The ship full of the first Belletts left port in Japan in January of 1965, set to be sold at prices ranging around $1700. (For comparison, a VW Beetle would have set you back around $1500–$2000 at the time.) With the Isuzu you got nearly double the horsepower (70 hp from a 1500 cc four), bucket seats, and even a full tool kit.

Again, legislation shaped the story. Canada’s Automotive Trade Agreement of 1965 allowed cars built in Canada to be sold into the U.S. free of tariffs. If CMI could built Toyotas and Isuzus and sell them across the border for less, it would be a home run. An attempt was made to purchase Studebaker’s ailing Hamilton operations, with the idea of building and selling the Bellett as a Studebaker Bellett, but this fell through. Instead, CMI would begin building first the Bellett and later the Corolla in Nova Scotia.

A little under 600 Canadian Belletts were built, making it far rarer than vehicles like the Canadian-made Volvo 122. Production stopped after 1968 with the line switching to the Corolla, roughly 7500 of which were built. The Nova Scotia plant closed in 1975, and Toyota didn’t begin Canadian production again until 1988.

The idea that a captive-import compact sedan might have changed Studebaker’s fortunes for the better is a tantalizing one, but in actuality the Bellett is just one of those interesting curiosities that make automotive history fun. World-wide, only about 170,000 Belletts were made, a mere drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of Datsuns and Toyotas that would establish the Japanese car industry.

A curiosity then, but also a brilliant little car that’s here been turned into something delightful and charming. Honda and Toyota would become the giants of Japanese manufacturing in the West, but Isuzu, and the Bellett, were first.