This COAL will be a bit of a cheat, I’m combining a Ford Courier with two Mazda pickups. Honestly, these trucks were so similar and so likable, I’m giving myself the okay to do a Mazda mashup and discuss all three.
We’ll start with the Ford Courier; ours was not all that different from the sad looking specimen shown here. In 1989 my wife and I invited her younger brother to come live with us in St Paul. He was living in Jamestown, NY and the local economy there was in pretty sad shape. We convinced him that his job prospects would be better in the Midwest. He didn’t own a car, so we started looking and soon found a somewhat beat up, but mechanically sound, 1981 Ford Courier 5 speed just like this one, complete with cheapo aluminum topper (i.e cap, shell, etc. depending on your geography). We bought the truck and then arranged a personal, no interest loan for him until he got on his feet.
The truck proved to be a reliable and economical commuter vehicle. This generation received the 2.0 liter Mazda engine starting with the 1978 model year, making 75 hp. The 2nd gen Courier was actually based on the 3rd gen Mazda, produced from 1977 to 1985. Aside from the unique grill and slight interior mods, there wasn’t much difference between the two. He let us borrow it on occasion to haul furniture, mulch, lawn clippings and the like. This was my first experience driving a mini pickup and the little Ford turned out to be a kick to drive. I think the trick was acknowledging that it was a crude conveyance and accepting it for what it was rather than be annoyed by the lack of creature comforts. About 6 months later, he accepted a job offer in Fairfax, VA. The truck got him there with all of his worldly belongings. He held onto the Courier for a few months, then sold it for what he had paid for it in Minnesota, paying us off in the process.
Along about this time we acquired a used Chrysler Mutineer 15. We didn’t actually know how to sail, but the boat was too good a deal to pass up. At this point we owned a 1986 MR2 and 1989 Camry wagon, neither of which we deemed suitable as a tow vehicle.
Coming fresh off our terrific experience with the Courier, we went pickup truck shopping. Mazda’s were much more common than Fords and we quickly found a blue 1987 Mazda B2000 5 speed. The truck had a bit of rust around the bed area but was in otherwise fine condition. We slapped a 2″ ball in the bumper and had our tow vehicle. This truck served us well, again handling yard waste duty when not hauling our boat to one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.
I also used it for daily commuter ride, finding it much more fun to drive than the Camry wagon. About two years into ownership, I was heading home from work, driving through downtown St Paul. Approaching an intersection with the green in my favor, I spotted a car running the light. I managed to hit the brakes and slid halfway through the intersection before colliding broadside. Fortunately there were no injuries.
And while my truck sustained substantial damage to the fenders, hood and bumper, it was still drivable. I received a very favorable estimate from my insurance company and found a local body shop who offered to repair not only the damage but also clean up the rust and repaint the rear. I think this sort of thing doesn’t happen so much anymore. The truck turned out great and we continued to use it as an everyday ride.
Shortly after we got the B2000 back, we found out we were going to have a baby. We had just finished building a house on about 8 acres of farmland in Stillwater, about 20 miles east of St Paul. This complicated our commutes, especially once daycare drop offs entered the picture. While we might have found a way to install a car seat in the regular cab, we decided an extended cab might be a better choice.
I hadn’t been paying much attention, but it was about this time that Mazda had made the decision to start rebadging Ford Rangers as B series trucks. On hearing the news, we went to our local Mazda store to see if they had any of the old-new stock B series trucks still in stock. We found this beautiful B2600i 5 speed extended cab and bought it that night. They had some of the Ranger based trucks in stock as well, but they were priced significantly higher. I guess they were trying to dump the older trucks.
The B2600i was the best of the three Mazdas we owned. This one came equipped with factory air, full instrumentation and the long bed. These 4th gen trucks were produced from 1985 to 1998, although Mazda stopped offering them in the US after the 1983 model year. The B2600i was offered in both 2WD and 4WD variants, but the 4WD models were gone by the time we went shopping. This was the best of the three trucks in terms of creature comfort and utility. The 2.6 liter fuel injected engine made 121 hp, a very nice jump in power for a truck that was not substantially larger than the previous generation.
The compressor on the A/C sprung a leak just after the warranty expired but other than that, the truck was almost perfect. I say almost because along about this time, I noticed a bit of rust around the windshield trim. While I had accepted rust as a fact of life with my older trucks, this was only 3 years old. Mazda’s failure to address their rust issues would eventually drive me away from the brand. Otherwise though, this truck served us well until we got the news our our second child, which turned out to be also our third. We were going to have twins. Fitting three car seats in a small car or truck was definitely going to be a challenge.
For what it’s worth a friend of mine was the first or one of the first people to install a Ford 289 into a 1972 Ford Courier. It was a very slick job although replacing the oil filter was not easy.
Rich,
I had to ask – did you and your wife eventually end up owning one of the Ranger-based B-Series trucks, from the 1994-2009 generation? A family friend of ours still has a 2002 B3000 that he bought new and it seems to run just fine with around 130k. He said he hasn’t had any major issues with it.
Never owned a Ranger based truck although they were plentiful in St Paul where a Ford Ranger plant was located. They shut down the plant when production stopped.
I always found those Mazda trucks appealing. Isn’t it true – rust you would accept as part of the package on something bought used and cheap is not acceptable on something you bought new.
I am still waiting on Mazda to work out its rust problems. I was really in love with the Protoge5 in the 00s, but those turned out to be horrible rusters. The Mazda3 liftbacks that replaced them were better but still far worse than about everything else. “Maybe the new ones are better” is a question I get tired of asking.
I owned a 2002 Protege5, bought new. Loved that car…until the rear wheel wells rusted out within three years.
I’ve been asking the same question for the past 14 years as I owned a 2003 Protege5 in the late 2000s and was constantly fending off rust in the rear wheel arches. I haven’t heard of any issues in the past five years.
The deep red on the 3rd rig pictured makes it look better than I remember .
The ’94 ~ ’09 series are pretty darn nice IMO I am loving my 2000 model Ranger with 2.5 L 4 banger .
*Just* enough power to get the job done and not a bit more .
My rig has been in Southern California since new (built in the twin cities) and has more surface rust underneath than I like to see, I’m told the tin worm makes short work of these anywhere in the rust belt, that’s a shame because better paint at the very least isn’t that much more $ .
Was 4 banger in the described trucks related to the Pinto engines ? .
-Nate
The Mazda trucks, like the ones described in this article are NOT related to any Ford 4 cylinder. I believe, tho I can’t remember for sure, that the 2600i engine was a Mitsubishi engine. The 2 liter engine in the Mazda/Courier was a Mazda unit.
I always thought that the Courier was a good looking truck and I came close to buying one, but my rural Pennsylvania Ford-Mercury dealer never carried them. They would sell the Ranger, but for whatever reason…tho I would guess they figured (correctly) that there wasn’t a market for that small of a truck, so they just never sold them. Besides, I really was too tall, I guess for a regular cab mini truck.
The 1600, 1800 and 2000 engines were all Mazda regardless of the badge on the tailgate.
The later models of this generation Courier did get the Pinto 2300 as an optional engine, but the Mazda trucks didn’t. It was a bastard of a set up. Apparently they shipped long blocks to Japan and Mazda dressed them with their own externals. It has been a long time but I do remember that the intake and carb were unique to the Courier and I believe the exhaust manifold was as well. IIRC the alternator was not a Ford unit either. I don’t remember about the distributor and starter.
I do remember the first time I popped the hood on one and was puzzled by the interesting combination of parts.
I’m not sure why they did that but I’m thinking it might have been because they had an Automatic to put behind the Pinto engine but not the Mazda engine? I do think they were also available with the Mazda 5sp.
On the other hand they may have just done it to keep the 2300 line running at least a little bit between the time the Pinto went away and the Ranger came out.
Here’s one from a 1978 Courier that I came across a while back. Note the Ford blue valve cover but the Mazda blue air cleaner cover…This all assumes that it’s the original engine with original parts as installed at the factory. I wish I had a higher angle pic…
Yup that is more or less how I remember them looking when newer.
So I had to go to napaonline and look up some parts. Apparently the distributor was installed/supplied by Mazda as the cap is the same as used on the Mazda engines and Mitsubushi derived products. The shocking thing that I didn’t remember from the time was that it had points as late as 1981 while the Pinto version had electronic ignition starting in 1975.
I get that, like the alternator, that made it plug and play with the existing truck wiring but I still find it surprising that they approved a step backwards.
Also surprised that it didn’t raise issues with the emissions certification.
Thanx guys ! .
I knew you’d know the answer .
FWIW, my 2001 Ranger uses many same or similar parts as the Mazda B2300 ~ the Mazda’s got a _metal_ tail gate latch handle, the Ford Ranger’s all got a cheapo plastic one that’s fine until you fail to lubricate the sliding side latches then it breaks off in your hand .
$6 got me a nice pot metal one from a B2300 after Dorman hosed me $29 for a metal one but had a plastic part in the box I received .
I have lost track of how many little Mazda parts I scavenged for my base model Ranger .
I remember driving a first generation 1800C.C. Courier and my 32″ inseam just *barely* fit ~ I’m glad I never had to drive it across America .
I’m pretty sure there’s a niche market for cracker jack pickups but can they make money at the low amount they’d build and sell ? .
-Nate
“I remember driving a first generation 1800C.C. Courier and my 32″ inseam just *barely* fit ~ I’m glad I never had to drive it across America .”
Which is a big reason that those small trucks got larger and why the extended cabs took off and the regular cabs fell out of favor.
Just so ScoutDude ;
Nevertheless many including me, vastly prefer a regular cab truck and a large portion of the reason I bought my base model Ranger ~ it’s a truck I can carry a Motocycle in and drive long distances yet it’s short wheel base and so easy to park and I often drive it too fast in the twisty bits when it’s unloaded, the rear end skips around a bit at the speeds I like to motorvate at . I so easily out run any long bed full size truck it’s laughable as tey all have big V8’s that have multiples of the power I work with .
I understand that more than 95% of light trucks sold in the U.S.A. never see commercial service yet I also firmly believe there’s a solid market for smaller, cost efficient light trucks .
Nate
I’ve always liked the look of (real) Mazda trucks and these are no exception. I think my favorite though was the ’86 B2000 or so with the thick gray and black stripe package, there were several at my high school and college.
Rust isn’t an issue if you live where there isn’t any, a cost of living that seems to be very rarely accounted for by anyone.
Great post! Around about this time, my wife and I were also going through a small truck phase – in our case, the Isuzu/Chevy Luv variant. I’d agree with most all that you say about their utility and general suitability for day to day transportation, except for in the winter. I’d wager that your winters are worse in MN than here in MA, and we always found the lack of traction distressing in snow or other very slippery conditions. It was just simple physics when there was so relatively little weight over the driving wheels…unless one went for the brace of cinder blocks in the bed during winter (something I was never keen on).
How did you handle winters? Or was that what the Camry wagon was mostly for?
I would throw a couple of sandbags in the bed, less likely to come flying through the rear window in a panic stop. And aside from the cold, MN winters, at least around the Twin Cities, aren’t really too bad.
I had a late-year ’76 Courier. (Late-year ones had the old body style(hood and fenders) but the slightly larger cab of the next gen, which you can tell by the rounded back edge, rather than the crimped-looking connection to the back.)
It served me very well, and started every winter morning (often below -10° f) in Potsdam NY, without a garage or block heater.
But boy did it rust.
Oh, now you’ve done it. What if somebody reads that and, having come to my Škoda singalong, decides to rework the lyrics to this?
I just wish they would make pickups of these sizes today. Bet they’d sell a bunch.
The upcoming Ford Maverick is the closest thing, being about the same size as an old Ranger SuperCab.
How did it go with the Chrysler Mutineer? Future Dockside Classic post, perhaps?
Maybe a SOAL? She was a fine boat. I think the story of Chrysler’s boat division needs to be told. But knowing how thorough the coverage is here at CC, it probably already has been.
Ford is still rebadging Mazdas, the Global Ranger is a Mazda BT50 with a few panel changes, its been a sucessfull partnership for decades.
Although the newest BT-50 has abandoned the Ford-Mazda partnership and now shares its platform with the Isuzu D-Max.
Right. Ford-Volkswagen is the new partnership for the next generation of light commercial vehicles (pickups and panel vans).
I recently acquired a 2013 Mazda3 (finally semi retiring the owned since 1991 ’86 Jetta at 302k miles, still running). Bought from original owner with 101k miles who lived in my town (Vancouver Washington). Completely rust free, 101k miles, no road salt used in this area, though. I heard up to 2009 they rusted badly in the rear wheel well area, supposedly this was fixed from 2010 up. Runs great, 2.0 5 speed auto, I guess time will tell if this is true.
Pinto was the Ford 2.0 or the 2.3, The Couriers had the 2.3 or the Mazda sourced 1.8 or 2.0. Mazda never got the 2.3 but they did have their 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 as well as the later 2.2 and the 2.6.