The greatest unheralded heroes in the automotive world are hiding in plain sight. With Fords, we can talk about Mustangs and Taurus all day long, but there are many lesser-known products that did hard work without anyone giving them due credit. One Ford that fits this description wasn’t really even a Ford, but it was a key player for the blue oval and was everywhere back in the day. Let’s revisit the Ford Courier and some of the odd and even unfathomable appearances it made in everyday Malaise life.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em
The larger-than-life Henry Ford II was known for being outspoken and a bit obstinate in many ways during his time at the helm of his namesake company back in the sixties and seventies. One reported example of this was when bone-in-his-throat subordinates Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich suggested buying engines from Honda to put into a world-beating Ford subcompact. “No car with my name on it is going to have a (slur deleted) engine under the hood” was all that “Hank the Deuce” bellowed out. Despite this perhaps apocryphal but feels-true anecdote, there very much was a Japanese product made during Henry II’s era with Ford branding all over it, but it wasn’t a car.
In 1958, Nissan (then called Datsun) launched a small pickup truck in America to a rather indifferent market. By the late sixties, however, Datsun and Toyota sales were too strong for American car makers to ignore, particularly in southern California. By now, it was a bit too late for a company like Ford to start from scratch with a competitive product, so the only option was to collaborate with the enemy. Ford saw that Japanese firm Toyo Kogyo (Mazda) had something called the B series pickup truck, sold in America with a 1600cc motor.
Notice how the brochure described it as the “piston engined” truck since Mazda was still selling the ill-fated Rotary model at this time as well.
Ford decided that a badge-engineered version of this truck would be just the trick and launched what they named the Courier in 1972, a name they unearthed from their old sedan utilities. Incidentally, that was the same year that rival Chevrolet did the same thing with a badge-engineered version of an Isuzu pickup that they called the LUV (Light Utility Vehicle, get it?). The Courier gave Ford exactly what they needed for seemingly as little effort as possible.
Ford’s version of the Mazda featured a 1.8-liter four with 74 horsepower; a step up from the 1.6 offered in the Japanese-branded models. You got a 1400-pound payload rating, great fuel economy, and a low starting price of only $2,200 (about $17,000 in today’s money, so basically a Slate truck). To get to that price, Ford needed to circumvent the so-called “Chicken Tax” that had been put into place to protect American brands but was now biting them in the ass. The trick was for Ford to import the Mazda trucks to the U.S. without the beds in place, resulting in only a 4% tax versus the standard 25% rate applied to imported small commercials.
The thing was hardly lavish, but you got a full set of gauges and vinyl-trimmed door panels inside. An automatic transmission and even air conditioning were available. Over the years, it’s amazing how little Ford did as far as year-to-year changes on the little truck, with the exception of a 3-inch increase to the cabin length to accommodate Egg McMuffin-fed Americans and a five-speed manual option in 1976. You can see that they were starting to get more brazen with the Ford logos on this thing.
For 1977, the Courier received a major refresh with a more angular body design. As an option, you could now get the ubiquitous 2.3-liter “Pinto” engine with a whopping 88 horsepower.
And for 1978, Ford moved the turn signals from the bumper to a space in the grille. After just one year! I bet you’re hyperventilating now, right?
The smaller, standard motor was now a two-liter that really sipped the gas, didn’t it? I thought that these were just unexciting workaday machines back in the day, but there are some things about them you might not be aware of.
Cute Haul
Importing a truck with absolutely nothing behind the cab actually has some advantages if you aren’t interested in putting a standard bed on it. Attention Jason Torchinsky: Look, yet another turn signal location Ford tried!
There were two different bed and frame lengths to choose from as well.
For truck rental agencies like U-Haul, that made the Courier perfect for conversion to a tiny box truck to complement their line of larger Ford F-Series-based products. Boy, was it small.
Mercedes Streeter has written about this one before, but the mini-mover debuted in 1978 on the revised second-generation Courier.
The cargo box on back was a mere six and half feet long and under six feet tall; barely enough for a Manhattan-sized starter apartment.
After the Courier disappeared from Ford’s lineup, Toyota stepped in with Hilux-chassis moving trucks with bigger, more usable boxes on the back. But they weren’t as cute as the Courier.
Ford By Four
Couriers might have been everywhere in the seventies, but they rarely ever made an appearance on backwoods trails. That’s because, despite showing images of Couriers on dirt with trail bikes in back, the one thing that Ford never tried to explore was the four-wheel-drive off-road mini truck market. Even Chevrolet offered a four-by-four edition of their Isuzu LUV to go head-to-head with Datsun and Toyota, but Ford was content with their pickup being a rear-drive-only proposition.
Not everyone was happy about that. A firm called Northwest A.T.V. in Kelso, Washington created something that they creatively called the 4WD “Courier Sasquatch.”
These were fitted with a Dana Spicer two-speed transfer case sending power to a solid front axle to run alongside the other Japanese off-roaders.
Reportedly, around 1500 of these off-road capable Couriers were sold along the west coast of the U.S., but Dearborn never felt the need to make an in-house version over the life of the truck. I’d buy a Sasquatch for the name alone.
It’s Electric, Boogie Oogie Oogie
The compact electric American pickup is not a new thing. We’ve written about an electric S-10 from a few decades ago, but the idea goes back even further to the early eighties.
A company in Texas called Jet Industries converted a number of different cars, trucks, and vans to primitive lead-acid battery power in this era of high fuel prices. You can see the wide variety of products they converted from Dodge Omni 024 sport coupes to full-sized Dodge vans and even a compact Kei van called the Ada, which our buddies over at the Lane Museum have an example of, and I know our Mercedes Streeter would buy if it came on the market.
Reports vary, but one of their dealers claimed that they converted upwards of 1400 electric vehicles before going belly up by the mid-eighties when gas prices killed the interest in such compromised alternative transportation.
The small pickup entry was the ElectraVan 750. Calling it an “American” EV truck might be a bit of a misnomer, since it was based on a Mazda-built Courier. With a 30-horsepower motor, it likely wasn’t a rocket ship, but the compact truck didn’t weigh much to start with, so it probably worked as an urban commuter and even something to carry larger loads. Well, larger if not exactly heavier loads.
Top speed was around 70 mph, but you’d have to go slower to get the full 50 to 60 miles of range on a full charge. Unverified sources state that at least 90 were sold (primarily to government agencies) between 1979 and 1982.
The Miracle Truck
On a stormy, near-zero-visibility morning in 1980, a massive freighter hit the base of the massive and skyscraper-tall Sunshine Skyway bridge in Florida. The collision caused the road surface of one full span to fall into Tampa Bay, far below.
It must have been a terrifying experience for Wesley MacIntire, a D-Day veteran who was on his way to work in his Ford pickup when he felt the road disappear from under him. His truck fell 140 feet, ricocheting off the side of the tanker that hit the bridge before going into the drink. MacIntire was able to get himself free and swim to the surface, the only survivor of all the drivers who tragically fell.
It turns out that Wes’s “Ford truck” was actually a Japanese Courier. Click here and you’ll see him standing next to the wrecked neo-Mazda that he reportedly wanted to “fix up” after it was pulled from the bottom of Tampa Bay.
When the remaining span of the other side of the old Skyway was demolished years later, MacIntire was the last one to drive across it. I don’t think he did the drive in the Courier, but based on that photo, it appears it could have been relatively easy to get the tough, now-roofless little truck to at least start again.
It Sure Wasn’t Lords Of Dogtown
One of the oddest appearances of a Courier is in the 1989 film Gleaming The Cube, the Citizen Kane of cheesy skateboard movies that gets a whopping 23/100 on Rotten Tomatoes. It stars shredding king Tony Hawk and Christian Slater before we all came to our senses and realized that his Temu Jack Nicholson act was too annoying to watch on screen.
In this epic turd, there is a scene where the skateboarders surround a Ford Courier that is doing duty as a Pizza Hut delivery vehicle. We can surmise that it’s doing this task because the little Mazda-in-disguise has a scaled-down Pizza Hut/Stuckey’s-shaped roof stuck on top of the cab.
I am extremely old and was very much alive during this time period and do not remember seeing such pickups prowling the streets. I did some internet sleuthing and cannot find any other appearances of such customized delivery Couriers outside of this flick, which was shamefully shut out of the Oscars by Driving Miss Daisy.
Am I missing something? Do any other Pizza Hut Couriers exist, even regionally?
If you know any facts about this spectacular pickup, please share! Skateboarding is not a crime, man!
Ford F****g Ranger!
The Courier was dropped after 1982 when Ford came up with their own domestically made compact pickup, the Ranger. Wow, that only took you what, twelve years, Ford?
As you can see from the ad for an ’81 below, they did very little to change the Courier near the end. Mazda’s version soldiered on alone as the B-series. If you bought the Mazda version, there was an ultra-efficient diesel engine option that the Ford-badged truck never got.
In some ways, you could call the Courier a stopgap, but that seems a bit of a misnomer, since Ford sold it for twelve years before offering an American-built replacement. One of the bigger contributions the Courier made was to begin the Ford and Mazda partnership that ended up becoming a much bigger thing as time went on and resulted in some great cars like Miata-powered Escorts and the awesome Probe GT.
In retrospect, a Japanese-made Ford might have been one of the best products to ever bear a Blue Oval logo. Maybe that’s just what Henry Ford II was afraid of.
Top graphic image: Ford
To be the only survivor of the 36 people that fell into Tampa Bay, somebody was definitely watching over Wesley MacIntire. But then I read that he was the only survivor from his landing craft on D-Day. Wow, twice in one lifetime is pretty amazing.
Dad bought a 1978 Courier XLT longbed 5 speed brand-new off the lot to replace the big and slow 1973 F100 Custom which was a horrendous yellow and brown two-tone combo.
The Courier was white with a red interior – he had AC and the big swing-away mirrors added like the lead photo. Once he bought it home the first thing he did was remove the huge “Courier XLT” badges on the sides – so ever after it had a few holes in the fenders where the badges used to be.
It was a good little truck – and the first vehicle I attempted to learn to drive a manual transmission in.
It was sold when my family left California after Dad was transferred to the Azores.
For articles like these I dont want to sell my 2009 Ford Ranger, when you own a small truck that is no longer in the market size wise (Only the Maverick but the bed is way smaller), the few times I actually use it for truck stuff, its amazing. Its mostly sitting right now thanks to gas prices but Home Depot runs = driving my f ranger.
I need that Pizza Hut truck. The Pizza Hut roof on it is amazing
Since I’m a person who does things with their hands, fixes stuff, keeps a garden, etc., every time I start looking for a car the people around me just assume I’d want a truck. They are always surprised with how emphatically I reject the idea. “I don’t like pickup trucks,” I say. That is a lie. I don’t like today’s trucks, but I love little trucks like these and would love to see small trucks make a comeback. I’m not towing car haulers and I don’t want to have to deploy a staircase just to reach in the bed to grab a skilsaw.
I like the Ford, but I LUV the Chevy.
It’s so adorable, I love it.
“Courier” would be a great name for Ford to bring back, especially since they didn’t use it for the Maverick.
Was thinking the same, maybe the new small EV trucklet.
Somebody should make a little 1-2-3 trucklet like these and sell them today in the U.S.
1 row of seats
2 doors
3 pedals.
It looks like they swapped in the grille & headlights from the Ford Escort
Actually it reminds more more of a Fairmont.
My father had one of these when I was learning how to drive. It had an after market A/C and was a five speed. Sometimes the solenoid that was use to idle up the engine when the A/C was on would not work correctly resulting in a lowered idle speed. There was a railroad crossing near where we lived. One night as I was driving and dad was in the passenger seat we rolled up to the crossing which was elevated. There was a train coming and as I had watched my parents in their automatic equipped cars, I tried to beat the oncoming train. I let out of the clutch too fast the engine stalled and the courier had enough momentum to die on the top of the hump that was the railroad crossing. Front axle on the top of the hump and side rear axle on the bottom with the train bearing down on us! I panicked and started clawing for the door handle in the dark of the truck. The Mazda designed recessed door handle was not going to be found. My father grabbed me by the shoulder and yelled “push in the clutch pedal!” i did and we rolled backwards just in time to miss the train… We went home and never told mom. He had a beer and i had a coke. He suggested that I never do that again. Come to think about it now the dumb things I did as a kid my have been the reason he kept drinking more and more but he was a terriffic dad and I would not be where i am today without his imparted knowledge.
I had a yellow plastic Ford Courier toy truck with racing stripes when I was a wee tot. I can still remember the smell and the weird plastic residue that those types of toys had back then. It got a lot of use, along with the generic, plastic “red station wagon” and “blue sedan” that probably came from Woolworth’s.
I had the Mazda B2000 in ’84 trim. Sundowner Sport LE. Bucket seats! Carpet! It was lavish compared to the base models. It was actually one of the best pickup trucks I owned due to size and durability, but lacked power to the point of being no fun at times, such as being limited to 50 mph on an expressway due to headwinds, while being passed by everything else at 75mph.
That Pizza the Hat truck looks vaguely racist.
Hey The Bishop, you could always buy a Ford Bronco with the Sasquatch package.
I’m old enough to remember that Pizza Hut roof on their restaurants. You can always tell an old repurposed one by the roof (and their trapezoid windows). I don’t ever recall that roof being applied to a vehicle, though.
This!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Japanese small trucks are like 1000x better than any shit Detroit can cough up LOL
Fuck Trump, time to get rid of the stupid chicken tax
I’ve always wondered – when did bed perimeter tie-down cleats disappear for good? Was it an aero thing, or more likely, a cost-cutting measure? They always seemed such an easy way to make something useful even more so.
You answered your own question. Let’s say they’re 30 cents a piece time six times 100,000.
The last cleated truck I can recall is the Ford Explorer Sport Trac.
There might be some kei trucks or other markets with them. Some models come with cleats on the inside of the bed (Fords IIRC).
I imagine they disappeared for liability purposes, and with the standard stake holes in the bed rails owners can put in tie-down cleats in if they want.
Man, I miss small real trucks or real small trucks, or both.
Even after being out of production for many years now, the ubiquity, volume, reputation and sales numbers of the Ranger lead me to a different conclusion than this headline.