Old cars and trucks are messengers from the past. This one isn’t just a messenger, but a Courier… and over its lifetime, Ford’s Courier witnessed North America’s pickup market change in innumerable ways. Much of this change happened quickly, and Courier was born when Ford knew it needed to respond to these trends faster than it could develop a small pickup of its own. Seeing this truck parked curbside was quite a treat, since I haven’t seen a Courier in decades. We can use this little yellow truck to take us back to the days of compact pickups.
During the late 1960s, consumers’ changing attitudes about pickups took domestic manufacturers by surprise. Buyers began thinking that pickups didn’t need to be heavy-duty work implements, a sentiment ushered in by the sudden popularity of small Japanese pickups. Often called minitrucks, US sales of these vehicles (all Datsuns and Toyotas at that time) climbed from 4,000 in 1964 to about 85,000 by 1971. To many, this was puzzling since these little trucks couldn’t haul or tow much, which at the time seemed like most of a truck’s appeal. Trying to solve this riddle, domestic manufacturers surveyed minitruck owners and found that the majority used their trucks as second cars, with occasional “trucky” activities limited to recreation and yardwork. In other words, a new market niche was budding.
Realizing they were losing out on some action, Ford, GM and Chrysler all wanted to join this party. However, creating a new type of vehicle from scratch would take years, and the companies wanted in on the fun quickly. All three eventually reached the same conclusion: Import Japanese pickups and rebrand them… such vehicles were known in marketing lingo as “captive imports.”
For its part, Ford began negotiating with Toyo Kogyo, the company that produced Mazdas, in the late 1960s. Well regarded in Japan and certain export markets, Mazda trucks were scarcely known in North America, but were similar enough to Datsun and Toyota class leaders to make Ford confident that importing a Mazda-built truck would provide the company with a competitive product.
Ford’s plan came to fruition in March 1972, when the first Mazda-built Courier pickups were unloaded in Los Angeles. At first, Couriers were sold only in US and Canadian West Coast markets where import penetration was already high. With its affordable price, 1800-cc four-cylinder engine and 1,400-lb. payload, Courier fit neatly into the minitruck market. Having made a quick, favorable impression on West Coast buyers, Ford soon expanded Courier deliveries to other parts of the continent. Overall, Ford sold about 27,000 Couriers during the 1972 calendar year.
Available sales figures from Courier’s first few years seem a bit imprecise, but by 1975 and ’76, US sales settled in the 50,000-unit range, enough to give Ford a 20-25% share of the still-growing compact pickup market.
Ford’s competition at that point still included the Datsun and Toyota minitruck pioneers, but the field had become more crowded. Chevrolet introduced its own captive import, the Isuzu-built LUV, at the same time Ford debuted its Courier. The two sold in roughly equivalent numbers throughout the 1970s. Chrysler was a bit late to the captive import pickup game, debuting the Mitsubishi-built Dodge D-50 and Plymouth Arrow in late 1978.
Mazda also sold pickups in North America under its own name, also starting in 1972. Largely similar to Couriers, Mazda trucks offered a different front clip and an optional rotary engine. Mazda’s sales, though, were tiny compared to Courier’s – on account of Ford’s greater name recognition and larger distribution network. Couriers outsold their Mazda counterparts by about ten-to-one.
Courier remained largely the same through the 1976 model year, save for a 3-inch increase in cab length for ’76 (which came at the expense of bed length).
Courier’s major change occurred for 1977: This is regarded as the Courier’s second generation, which lasted through 1982. Both front and rear ends were noticeably changed, with a more modern appearance spearheaded by a redesigned grille with recessed headlights.
Additionally, performance and comfort features kept pace with the times. For example, buyers could opt for a more powerful Ford-built 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine, if the standard Mazda-supplied 1.8 wasn’t enough. On top of that, an XLT trim package brought more exterior brightwork, as well as interior amenities like upgraded upholstery, carpeting, and even woodgrain trim on the dash. All of this reflected trends in the overall pickup market, with trucks assuming more car-like qualities.
By 1980, when our featured truck was sold, Courier’s standard engine had increased to 2 liters from the original 1.8, but other than that and a redesigned instrument panel, Couriers from the early 1980s were largely the same as a ’77 model. Overall, this remained a hot market segment; US pickup imports doubled during the 1970s, helped along by the trucks’ thrifty operating expenses, which Ford highlighted in its 1980 ads.
Our featured truck has received some (probably recent) modifications – namely LED headlights and Bronco-style wheels. These changes didn’t diminish my elation of finding a small, old pickup. After all, in the Midwest or East Coast, old Japanese pickups are largely extinct, so the lack of original hubcaps is hardly a drawback here. I haven’t seen a Courier about 20 years.
Courier’s specifications were typical for small pickups of its day. A four-cylinder engine and 1,400-lb. payload capacity proved sufficient for recreational purposes, though clearly light-duty in the world of pickups. Interestingly, customers could spec their Couriers to be both more powerful and to ride more comfortably than the standard model. The optional 2.3-liter engine provided 88 horsepower – 14 percent more than the standard 2-liter and a welcome boost in stamina. Meanwhile, a “soft ride” suspension package, equipped with progressive-rate leaf springs, did what its name implied, though in the process reduced the payload to 900 lbs. This was a noteworthy option because its availability acknowledged that some customers wouldn’t come close to using even the standard 1,400-lb. payload, and would gladly trade hauling capability for a more car-like ride.
It’s unknown whether our featured truck was ordered with either of those options, though it does have the 3-speed automatic transmission, so a 2.3 would provide some welcomed oomph.
One feature our Courier does have is the optional 7-ft bed. This became available with the 1977 redesign (a 6-ft. bed was standard), and was a popular choice.
This truck’s tail lights – with their amber turn signals – are recent additions. North American Couriers (and their Mazda counterparts) had red turn signals. Either by choice or necessity, this Courier’s owner gave the truck a unique look.
One gets a full appreciation for 1970s and early ’80s minitrucks from looking at the interior. By today’s standards, it’s quite spartan; for the day this was considered perfectly acceptable. Clearly it’s a snug, narrow cabin, though the extra three inches gained for 1976 made a noticeable difference. Six-footers could comfortably drive these trucks, and shorter drivers were left with some stowage space behind the seat.
While our featured truck is as plain as Couriers came, the pricier XLT model provided some outright cushiness. Even if luxury levels weren’t quite up to F-150 Lariat standards, this was well above the base Courier, with its plain-looking vinyl bench and exposed metal door panels.
Despite the 2nd-generation Courier’s lack of major changes, the model remained competitive among other minitrucks. With its chiseled crease lines and squarish design, Courier still looked current in the 1980s, even though the design was several years old.
Source of Data: “Auto Industries of Europe, U.S., and Japan,” 1982.
1980 US Courier sales of 77,735 took 17 percent of the total 462,000-unit imported pickup market. Toyota and Datsun still held the #1 and #2 positions, and the Big Three’s captive imports together took just short of half of the market. Overall, these six imports accounted for 13 percent of total US light truck sales.
From the outset, both Ford and General Motors planned to produce their own compact pickups eventually – Courier and LUV were simply stopgap measures. The stopgap lasted for a decade until those companies debuted their own domestically-produced trucks. For a while, Ford wavered on whether its new Louisville-built Ranger would replace or supplement the Mazda-sourced Courier.
Ford’s decision on whether to continue importing Couriers was helped along by the US Customs Service. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Japanese pickups avoided the 25% “chicken war” tariff on imported trucks because they were shipped across the Pacific without cargo boxes. Toyota manufactured its cargo boxes in California; other manufacturers shipped their beds separately from Japan and attached them to the truck chassis in the US. Shipping incomplete vehicles – such as pickups without cargo boxes – got everything classified as “parts” instead of vehicles… and parts were subject to a much lower 4% tariff. All of this saved hundreds of dollars per vehicle, but in 1980, the Customs Service ruled that such shipments would be thereafter classified as unfinished trucks, rather than parts, and consequently subject to the full tariff.
Toyota, Datsun and Mazda absorbed part of the tariff’s cost in order to avoid passing it on to consumers, but Ford and GM didn’t need to be in that position. Accordingly, Courier and LUV were discontinued once their US-built replacements debuted.
For Ford, Ranger production started in January 1982. The last Couriers made their way across the ocean later that year, and with them, Ford’s experiment with captive pickup imports came to an end.
North America’s pickup market has changed immeasurably in the decades since Couriers populated Ford showrooms. Compact pickups’ popularity came and went, luxury came and stayed, captive imports faded from memory, and pickups in general have become entirely mainstream. While this yellow Courier now seems like an oddity, it represents a unique period in automotive history when US manufacturers first experimented with smaller pickups. Courier may not have been the most successful and cutting-edge pickup of its time, but it certainly delivered a message that was well received by customers.
Photographed in Jefferson City, Missouri in April 2025.
Related Reading:
1973 Ford Courier – Far From F’d Rich Barron
1976 Ford Courier: The Second Toughest Old Mini-Pickup? Paul Niedermeyer
Top Photo:
With those headlights and grill and rims, it reminds me of the Slate Truck.
Could it be Mr Bezos and friends were inspired by the Courier for their new truck?
A very good find which I will likely see when I leave for work in 45 minutes…which would only be natural. I suspect to know about where you found it; there are some good finds in that part of town!
I’ve told this story before, but when growing up our neighbors had a ’73 Olds Delta 88 and a mid-70s F-150, both white, when one day a line of 8 white Ford Couriers were lined up in their yard. We joked the Olds and F-150 had had a litter of babies, but the couple’s son had purchased the Couriers at an auction. I want to say they had belonged to the Corps of Engineers. Anyway, the son visually reinvigorated each of them, selling all but one he kept for himself.
Thank you for providing sales volumes. I had never read about quantities before nor had I known market share for these compacts.
I’m curious if you ever see this truck around town. I was in Jeff City briefly in April – the Courier was parked at the curb when I drove by, and I quickly photographed it. I’m glad I did because a few hours later it had vanished.
I’m glad I was able to dig up sales data for these trucks. I came across the data in an obscure book – I assume the data itself came from Ward’s Auto Yearbooks, though it wasn’t sourced. Still, I think it added some valuable detail here.
And your story about your neighbor’s little of Couriers reminds me that these trucks seemed pretty popular as fleet vehicles – filling the role that small vans like the Nissan NV 200 are in today. The picture below is from the early ’80s here in Virginia – there’s a white commercial-use Chevy LUV driving by, and in the background is a green Courier that I believe belonged to the local Public Works fleet (and of course a Pontiac T-1000 in the foreground).
An Isuzu-rich environment.
A 7-11 next to a Shell station. Can there be anything more NoVA from my memory? Nope. 🙂
What a well written article, from the opening line to close, well done.
Thanks!
I think the ’77 restyle on these was to help ease the transition to the Ranger: looks a lot more like the Ranger than the earlier ones did. And I as kid back in the ’70s remember seeing semi-truck loads of beds, so I think some came thru our ports here in Oregon
Yeah there used to be a pretty steady stream of Toyota beds heading north on I5. I’m pretty sure they all ended up at the port of Tacoma to be installed. It isn’t a coincidence that when Toyota chose to give their small pickup a name that the name was Tacoma.
The first gen Ranger, successfully looked like a mini-F-150.
The 1977-era Courier didn’t look like a mini F-150.
The Courier looked like a Fairmont derivative.
BIG difference in pickup truck cred. One reason, they didn’t appeal to me as a kid.
They shared a ‘Creased Cardboard-look’ of the Fairmont. Even the first Ranger, easily looked more rugged and masculine.
I actually like the 2nd-generation Courier styling, even though it was bland in the base version. The first generation tried to hard for some kind of brand identity with bigger Ford pickups (the grille looked like it was copied and shrunken from an F-series), but the ’77-82 models had a style of their own.
Certainly not an exciting design, but to me it seemed contemporary and decent-looking. For some reason, I see it as less boring-looking than a Fairmont.
Besides vans, there was strong owner-driven demand and push, in the late ’70s, for pickups to be stylish and fun, besides functional.
The Courier never successfully shook its strong utilitarian image. On dealer lots, I remember rows of them looking just like the silver one I posted below (upper right). Strippers with Ford’s corporate flat-faced wheels. The dated-looking exterior-exposed bed tie-downs, didn’t help lighten, their basic functional image.
Many strong-looking pickups were marketed during the late 70’s. Unfortunately, I though the 1977-era Couriers looked comparatively wimpy, compared to various other full-sized, and compact pickups.
The Fiesta, Fairmont/Zephyr, Fox-based Thunderbird, and Courier, conveyed a lack of presence, borderline cheapness, I didn’t find appealing then. From my POV, smaller packaging didn’t need to appear so fragile, or inexpensive. Styling was conservative, a bit too serious. I never considered them cute, or charming, like some other small pickups. Interiors looked stark, underscaled, and budget.
These are general views I had then, as a kid in grade school.
So close, and yet so far.
I like to compare Courier styling, to the ’84 Jeep Comanche. Very similar lines, but the Jeep comes across with so much more conviction and style, as a rugged little truck. Courier looks so depressingly sterile, and bland, in comparison.
Even the Fairmont-based Ford Durango mini-pickup, conveyed (significantly) more style and character. Courier seemed like a perfect government fleet vehicle. Just like the Fairmont!
Remarkably, I often found the Courier, with common dog-dish hub caps, appeared more bland than the Fairmont.
I liked these a lot when they were new, and found this generation of Courier to be the best looking of all of the Japanese pickups of the time. That styling was quite ahead of the curve when it came in 1977 – it seems like the rest of Ford’s corporate styling got in line behind the Courier.
Like you and probably everyone else who will comment here, I cannot remember the last time I saw one of these. Yes, this one has some rust, but I think it is a near-miracle that it still exists!
Great find. I don’t think that I’ve seen a Courier in a decade. It’s nice to see that at least one is still on the road. I hope that the owner gets on top of the rust in that driver’s side fender dog-leg. At one time, he could have just gone and picked up another fender. Now, what he has on his truck is probably as good as it gets. Also, those hubcaps bother me sufficiently that I’d be tempted if I saw this truck regularly to pop on a set of something, anything, more period-correct the next time I drove by. For free. (I probably have something in my basement right now that would fit…)
Our LUVs both ended up with a seat cover exactly like what this one has. Nothing rips like 1970s vinyl in a truck. I can still recall where in the store those covers were sold in Caldor (a somewhat lamented NY/New England discount store that shuttered in the 1990s).
Good point about the long bed. I’ve been told – but have no “data” on this – that these were particularly popular because in the 1970s sleeping in ones truck was still an aspirational thing. That’s also part of the reason why so many had caps (e.g., in Paul’s linked article about the Couriers he found in Oregon).
The seat cover in this truck looked new – and I was wondering if it really is. Seems like this was the go-to pickup bench cover design in the 1980s/90s, though I don’t see them much any more.
Wooof. Those wheels and headlights are GD foul. A+ way to ruin that truck.
You can still see Ford Couriers in other parts of the world, the nameplate was used well into 2000s in different markets.
The Mazda-based Ford Courier kept going in Australia and NZ until 2006 through a total of 4 generations. I haven’t seen a 2nd gen for years, but 3rd gen (1985-98) is still around.
In 2006 the 5th generation of Mazda-based utes arrived but was renamed Ranger. And the following Rangers from 2011 onwards are not Mazda-based anymore, but designed by Ford Australia – it’s the best-selling ute in Oz, every tradie and their dog drives one.
In Europe, the Courier name was used for a Fiesta-based panel van in the 90s, and I believe Brazil was building a pickup truck version of said van…
Later Rangers are designed and built in Thailand and sell well and have only just stopped being a restyled Mazda BT50 with the current model and have finally adopted Ford/PSA twin turbo diesel engines.
I think there is still a market for a small pickup. Now trucks are a replacement for cars where one can take the whole family along. With the aging population and small young families there should be a lot of appeal for small trucks. There seems to be a push to drive large pickups at least around here as the super duties are made locally. It’s unbelievable that people want to spend a small fortune filling up their vehicle.
I’ve had a number of Mazda/Courier pickups over the years and loved each one. While in the Air Force I drove my ’79 Courier with the 2.3 and 5 speed from San Angelo TX to Fairbanks AK, via Florida, Washington, and Nebraska in just a few weeks. I had survival school training all over the place. I also had, later in life, a very used ’77 Courier that got hit in the front end. I could not find a Courier front clip in the salvage yard, but found a Mazda unit that I put on. I called it my Forzda from then on. Between those two, I had a brand new 1986 Mazda B2000. It was beautiful, with the SE5 package and camping shell. I got married and started having children. The Mazda no longer fit the bill. I didn’t want to sell it, but Staff Sergeants didn’t make a lot of money, and I couldn’t afford to keep it. My last one was a 1975 Mazda that I got for $1000 back in about 2010. I was a project car. It had some serious overheating issues and I finally lost the engine. It was fun while it lasted. I even painted over the original yellow with several cans of flat black spray paint in the driveway. Fun Times!
1980 Car and Driver Mini Truck Melee.
Among seven mini-trucks tested in 1980, where did C&D place the Courier?
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a42859506/1980-mini-trucks-compared/
Big decal in the back window of the near new Courier I drove way back when :
FORD NEW 1800CC IMPORT .
Those cabs were snug ~ I have 32″ inseam yet it was a bit cramped .
-Nate
It is impossible to overstate how much the Courier and LUV normalized the ownership of Japanese-made vehicles in the US, especially as one got away from the coasts.
Lots of places in Middle America didn’t have Toyota or Datsun dealerships, but every town had Ford and Chevy dealers. Ownership of an import might have led to some derision or blowback from your neighbors.
But if your truck said “F O R D” on the tailgate and you’d bought it from Floyd at Greenville Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, you likely might get away with it. These little trucks gave many Middle Americans their first taste of what Japan could build, and that helped open the floodgates.
In our market the 1.8 arrived with the model posted, they will tow 2.5 ton, I hired a flat deck version to pick up a dead car I bought, tow yes stop it without trailer brakes not so well, the bigger cab was noticeable we had both models as workshop runabouts the earlier B1600 was a tight squeeze, regular timing chain replacements were needed on the 1600s to keep them running properly, other than that they just ran and ran, good little utes.
Worked on so much stuff over the years. If memory serves, one of the feed mills had a couple of Couriers, bad for rust, the only way to keep the tail lights working was take the bulb out, pull the wires through and solder the wires and a ground wire to the bulb and stuff it back in the light.
We had a few of these in the fleet, hand me downs from one company or another that my employer acquired. While they were kind of tinny and prone to rust, they were also tougher than dirt. Ours were all 2.3 automatics, and they were used for parts pickup, post office trips, pizza runs etc. On weekends I let employees borrow them for yard chores and such, no one ever broke one despite some pretty heavy loads.
Eventually (at 15 plus years old) my shop foreman said the corrosion was bad enough to condemn them, but they were still mobile when they were auctioned as scrap. Nothing fancy, but they were good value and an honest work machine!
I’m in the camp that prefers the old Courier but have never seen the 1st gen Mazda that you pictured… There’s one Courier of your generation in town that doesn’t seem to move much and the older ones are mostly seen in the junkyard nowadays, probably one every few months…
Although today I was behind this early ’80s Diesel Datsun that I wrote up a few years ago, I see it a few times every year, it ranges quite far and wide and always seems to travel about 10 under whatever speed limit is in place…but still gets wherever it’s going eventually.
It amazes me that you still sees trucks like this around – they’re completely gone from other parts of the country.
I like the Datsun’s license plate too – it’s one of the original Colorado Pioneer plates, where people had to prove that their ancestors lived in Colorado in the 1800s. The plate says “Settler’s Descendant” in small letters below the center image. Those plates were issued between 2000-2006 and then Colorado loosened the rules so that people didn’t actually have to prove descent to get them. The design changed too at that time, so now it’s possible to spot the earlier ones.
Anyway – that’s quite a sighting!