(first posted 1/24/2018) Bangkok is home to the largest Japanese expat community in the world. Some work here, but a considerable number also choose to retire in Thailand. Funnily enough, some Japanese vehicles also ended up retiring in the sun, such as this Mazda Familia pickup.
The Corvair genes were strong in the 1963-67 Familias.
The Familia dynasty started in early 1963, when Mazda launched their new 800cc pickup truck. Soon, a ‘van’ version (two-door wagon) emerged; strangely, the four-door sedan came last, by the end of the year, to replace the 600cc Carol as the largest Mazda saloon. This first generation Familia 800/1000 was superseded by a completely new car in late 1967.
The new Mazda Familia 1000 debuted in Japan – this time as a four-door saloon from the get-go. Mazda needed to use the new Familia to conquer new markets, which required fitting a larger 1200cc engine providing 58 hp (DIN). The Mazda TC 1.3 litre OHC engine was also proposed from 1970, though none were as fast as the 100 hp rotary versions. The Familia pickup, which started production in 1968, was not affected by the changes Mazda made to the saloon’s width and drivetrain. Even when saloon production stopped in Hiroshima in 1977, the pickup continued on.
Above: Mazda also fielded a coupé; below: late-model Kia Brisa in a 1980 Korean film (source: imcdb.org).
The Mazda boys had successfully exported their little car pretty far and wide. South Africa was in demand, as were many other African and Asian countries, for these rugged little things. Kia built the saloon, wagon and pickup versions as the Brisa until 1981. But the pickup demand remained high enough that Mazda could keep making them – as long as they could keep costs low. In 1980, Mazda ended up moving the whole line to Thailand. Local content and labour laws meant the vehicle’s production was easy to keep going at low prices.
It also meant the pickup could ill afford too much plastic surgery. By the late ‘80s, the once-graceful front bumper was botoxed to hell and some of what was once chrome had become painted. That is to be expected, I suppose. It’s certainly evident in several other ‘60s designs that lasted into the ‘80s or ‘90s, like the quite similar Nissan Sunny pickup, but also the Argentinian Ford Falcon, the Avanti, the Tatra 613, the Rolls-Royce Corniche or the Porsche 911.
Production continued at a low-key rate (below 10,000 units per year) well into the 1990s – increasingly for the domestic market. The “super cab” moniker refers to the length of the bed and the redesigned rear cab, which could offer rear seats (long cab) or a short cab like our CC, which is a long bed. The base version (short cab + short bed) was least popular. The engine employed in these late-model Familias is usually a 1415cc 4-cyl. that provides the rear wheels, via a 5-speed gearbox, with 70 hp. CNG and LPG conversions are very popular here and a number of Mazda Familia pickups have been modified, possibly even from new.
So there were a few cosmetic changes here and there, but the ‘60s shape is still reasonably there. Some suppliers were obviously happy to continue making the same part over two decades, such as the door handles. But the most interesting bit was inside.
The steering wheel seems from the right decade, but everything else looks like pure ‘70s. The suspension, brakes and chassis, though, remained very ‘60s: McPherson struts, cart-sprung live rear axle and drums all around. I understand driving these certainly feels very ‘60s – no power steering, no power brakes, no power windows, no A/C, no automatic gearbox. Fewer things to go wrong…
It’s unclear to me when production stopped exactly, but it seems these were still being sold as late as 1999. So the Mazda Familia pickup is part of the relatively small group of vehicles that was manufactured for over 30 years. It may not have the uniqueness of the Burmese Mazda 4×4, but before I saw this little Mazda parked on the (wrong side of the) street, I had never guessed these were made in Thailand – and for so long. Nowadays, Mazda had a huge factory cranking out triple-digit amounts of Mazda pickup trucks. The Familia is from a different era, when Thailand was still developing its parts supplier base and local content laws were more restrictive. Relaxing these laws gave Thai production a massive shot in the arm, but this also means extremely long-lived designs like this Mazda are far less likely. Luckily, judging from the Thai internet, this model has something of a cult following here already.
Related post:
Curbside Classic: 1991 Nissan Sunny B122 Pickup – Keep Those Flares, They’ll Come Back In Style, by T87
So in the case of this truck, 1990’s updates to a 1960’s design equal something that looks straight out of the early 80’s. The clean original design helps.
Those look like Geo Tracker wheels, and they actually look okay here. I dig the timeless Mazda font too. I wonder if this would’ve sold well in the states as a cheaper alternative to the B series we got here?
Wikipedia claims,”Bangkok,has the fourth-largest Japanese expatriate population of any city in the world outside Japan, only behind Los Angeles, New York City, and Shanghai.” They claim there are about 51,000 Japanese living in Bangkok and about 71,000 in Thailand overall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_migration_to_Thailand
Interestingly Wikipedia claims,” Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. According to the IBGE, as of 2009 there were approximately 1.6 million people of Japanese descent in Brazil, and estimated at just under 1.5 million as of 2014.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Brazilians
The largest ethnic Japanese community abroad is Brazil, no doubt about it. But they’re not Japanese expats.
As to Wiki’s evaluation of Japanese expats in Bangkok, these are only the ones who live here officially. A huge number of folks live and work in Bangkok with 30-day tourist visas. They don’t show up as residents in the stats, but they do live here.
Great find. I love these obscure odd-balls that we’d never see here except thanks to your roving eye.
Great find. Here’s a short cab I caught in Melbs a few years ago.
I found one in Los Angeles on GSV. Spin around and look at previous views, it seems to be part of a collection of mostly Studebakers and RWD Datsuns.
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0397947,-118.2109086,3a,60y,113.52h,78.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAmExjkUUgHImgYCojByKDA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Hey that’s brilliant! What a street that is, wow! That street has about 7-8 cars I’d enjoy writing or reading about on CC. The Mazda’s definitely not the most interesting vehicle there.
And now I.m wondering: How many CCs can be seen on GSV?
New game / CCategory: GSV Classics.
Oh, but there are a lot of those in my town. Maybe a series similar to the Craigslist Classified Cornucopias? Google Street View classics in one’s own area?
Thailand is Southeast Asia’s motor vehicle powerhouse – with a well established parts supply chain as well as final assembly plants from various makers. A pretty substantial % of their production are light trucks (pickups, utes, bakkies – whatever you call them).
We’re probably gonna see more Thai-sourced cars in Australia given that Ford, GM-Holden and Toyota have shut down their assembly ops in Oz.
So that’s how Mazda started making their trucks in Thailand! As always, this site is very educational. The steering wheel in the featured truck is from the second generation FWD 323 (the Familia’s successor), and the car in the background of the movie still photograph is the original Hyundai Pony.
Bought a 1997 pick-up today, runs like a charm with over 200,000 km
What kind of fuel consumption are you getting? I’m getting 9km to the litre at best. Love it apart from that.
The NZ govt bought a batch of those Mazda utes one ended up at the power station I worked at, I drove it once, too damn small in the cab for me that extended cab would have been great but we had the regular version, it finished up at the engineers office as a runabout so it never carried anything substantial,
I love these!
The Mazda 1200 was very popular in Alberta and British Columbia in 1974 when I became aware of cars. I still covet a ’71 1200 Coupe, but would gladly settle for the sedan or wagon.
The 1200 truck of the era was a thing, but I’ve never seen one in the wild.