1999 Isuzu Filly – Give Up, Already!

We’ve just spent two months in the ‘90s chez T87, and I’m about ready to go back to something a little older. But before that, one last stop is required to ponder about the pitiful state of Isuzu’s car branch at the end of the decade. They had already pulled out of many important markets, had virtually nothing in the works that wasn’t also a truck and yet, the show had to go on with something, anything. Even a Nissan?

In 1993, Isuzu decided to essentially gave up on cars. They closed down their passenger car R&D department to focus squarely on their forte: trucks, AWD vehicles and Diesel engines. But one cannot just turn a firm like Isuzu on a dime. Depending on the market, the car branch was to be wound down gradually over a decade, not just chopped off from one day to the next.

After having built CKD Hillmans in the ‘50s, created their own cars in-house (Bellel, Bellet, Florian, 117 Coupé…) in the ‘60s and ‘70s and adapted General Motors designs in the ‘80s, Isuzu cars would all be purely badge-engineered by MY 1994. Save for the Subaru-based gen 2 Aska (1990-93), the overwhelming majority were Honda designs. In Japan, Isuzu sold the gen 3 Aska (originally an Accord, top left) and the two generations of Gemini (a.k.a Honda Domani, top right). The US market got a Honda Odyssey clone called Oasis for a minivan through to 1999 (bottom left); from 1996 to 2001, the Civic/Integra SJ-based Isuzu Vertex (bottom right) was sold in Thailand and Indonesia, two countries where the marque still had a large presence.

For the all-important JDM, the US-made Oasis was a non-starter. However, Isuzu did need a minivan in their dwindling range, so they cut a deal with Nissan: the new Elgrand, a large 7/8 passenger minivan was to also be sold as the Isuzu Filly. In exchange, the Isuzu Elf truck was rebadged as the Nissan Atlas.

Isuzu had done a pretty good deal here: it turned out that the Nissan Elgrand was a particularly well-regarded luxury minivan. Launched in May 1997 (the Isuzu version followed two months later), it had a very conventional layout – front engine, RWD or AWD (in the present case, the latter), a 170hp 3.3 litre V6 petrol or 100hp 3.2 litre 4-cyl. turbo-Diesel mated to a four-speed automatic, that sort of thing. The Elgrand was endlessly customizable, very comfortable and generally quite reliable.

It was also rather expensive, or at least some of the Nissan versions could be, as their PR department developed multiple special packages, optional extras and trim levels. Some of the swankiest Autech-tuned and body-kitted versions like the one above could reach almost ¥7m – well over twice the price for a base model.

Those super-deluxe variants were not part of the program if you were looking at the Isuzu Filly, though. It was reasonably well-appointed, but nothing too fancy either. So what was the point of it?

Well, Isuzu’s domestic dealer network was nothing to sniff at. Those folks had to be kept busy while the company was turning into a truck-only business. From the client’s point of view, if you happened to have an Isuzu dealeship nearby, owned an Isuzu vehicle, were in some sort of business relationship with Isuzu or worked for them and were in the market for a large minivan, the Filly was your obvious choice. Did that amount to a lot of people? No, but then the sum of money Isuzu dedicated to making these (a grille, a rear panel, a couple of badges and a run of brochures) wasn’t huge either.

I believe this one is the highest grade available, but then there were only two on offer: the lower one had no “wood” inlay on the dash.

The rest of the vehicle is rather standard minivan fare, with two rows of seats.

This eight-passenger configuration was the only one available on the Filly, whereas the Nissan Elgrand could also be ordered as a seven- or a ten-seater. Not sure how they squeezed another two passengers back there, but it was an option. Another option was the ambulance – those could be ordered from both Nissan and Isuzu, the latter being dubbed “Super Medic.”

As discussed in a previous post about (more recent) luxury minivans, this type of vehicle became ubiquitous in Japan from the turn of the millennium onwards. Many served (and still do) as hotel wagons, airport taxis, wedding and funeral transport, VIP shuttles, rural school minibuses, tour operator vehicles and the like. Some were also bought by families who needed a bit more space so the grandparents could fit in. In 1999, when this Filly was new, competition in this corner of the market was already fierce.

It was the start of the Golden Age of Minivans, which hasn’t really ended in Japan as of yet. There were already plenty of models on offer from domestic makers, as well as a few notable foreign entrants. The Honda LaGreat was counted as an import, being that it was made in the US. Other available imports would have been the Mercedes V-class and the VW Sharan, both priced at the same level as the Chrysler. Having a Diesel option was less important in Japan than in places like Europe, but it was very popular with certain fleet users.

In late 1999, the engine options for the Filly changed to a 3.0 litre turbo-Diesel 4-cyl. and a 3.5 litre petrol V6, both Nissan engines of course. Very little else changed until early 2002, at which time Isuzu announced they were fully pulling out of the non-truck market in Japan. The last Filly was made in March, just before Nissan unveiled a completely new Elgrand in May of that year. Precise production numbers for the Isuzu Filly are hard to track down, but the consensus seems to hover around 3000-4000 units between 1997 and 2002. Nissan, for their part, sold an average of three times as many Elgrands every month, in that era.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what the deal was with that odd name, a Filly is not just a misspelled cheese steak. It’s a perfectly cromulent word found in the OED that refers to a young female horse. Perfect model name for Isuzu’s five decades of automobile production to ride into the sunset.