The Isuzu Bellel is a
compact car
Compact car is a vehicle size class — predominantly used in North America — that sits between subcompact cars and mid-size cars. "Small family car" is a British term and a part of the C-segment in the European car classification. However, p ...
produced by the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
manufacturer
Isuzu from 1961 to 1966. It was the company's first independent design, and also Japan's first passenger car with a
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
. It was available as a four-door
sedan and a five-door
station wagon
A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door ( ...
, called the Bellel Express. The Bellel Express was technically speaking a commercial vehicle, as was the custom in Japan at the time. The name "Bellel" resulted from combining the English word "bell" with the
Roman numeral
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
"L", equalling 50, and thus the name was supposed to represent "fifty Bells" (Isuzu literally means "fifty bells" in Japanese), and reflects a tradition within Isuzu of naming products that use terms that have
special significance in Japan. Production began in time for the
1964 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this ho ...
held in Tokyo in October 1964, with initial release in select Japanese cities starting in April 1962.
![1964 Isuzu Bellel 2000 Deluxe rear](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/1964_Isuzu_Bellel_2000_Deluxe_rear.jpg)
The Bellel was fitted with 1.5 L and 2.0 L gasoline
OHV
An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located bel ...
engines with a Bosch licensed fuel injection system,
[Flammang, p. 308] and also the aforementioned 2.0 L diesel (DL201) engine.
The original diesel engine was called the DL200; it offered . All engines were mated with a four-speed
manual transmission
A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed motor vehicle transmission (mechanics), transmission ...
with the
shifter mounted on the steering column. The suspension setup was modeled after the
Hillman Minx
The Hillman Minx was a mid-sized family car that British car maker Hillman produced from 1931 to 1970. There were many versions of the Minx over that period, as well as badge-engineered variants sold by Humber, Singer, and Sunbeam.
From the m ...
, which was previously manufactured by Isuzu under a license agreement with the
Rootes Group
The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and dea ...
. The list of standard equipment expanded so that it could compete for sales against more popular products from more prolific Japanese manufacturers, helping to justify the yearly
road tax bill for using a large displacement engine, while remaining compliant with Japanese Government
dimension regulations. As the private car ownership market in Japan began to grow, the Bellel was offered as an alternative to the
Toyota Crown
The is an automobile which has been produced by Toyota in Japan since 1955. It is primarily a line of mid-size luxury cars that is marketed as an upmarket offering in the Toyota lineup.
Introduced in 1955 as the Toyopet Crown, it has served ...
,
Nissan Cedric
The is a large automobile produced by Nissan since 1960. It was developed to provide upscale transportation, competing with the Prince Skyline and Gloria which were later merged into the Nissan family. In later years, the Nissan Skyline was posi ...
, and the
Prince Gloria
Gloria may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music
* Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise
* Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise
** Gloria (Handel)
** Gloria (Jenkin ...
.
The original end treatment was updated in October 1965 in an attempt to afford the Bellel a more formal, upscale and mainstream look. The facelift included changes to the front fascia, where the previous single round headlights paired with smaller turn signals were replaced by quad round headlights arranged vertically.
![1967 Isuzu Bellel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/1967_Isuzu_Bellel.jpg)
The diesel engine - a first for a Japanese passenger car - made the Bellel popular for commercial applications, such as
taxicab
A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...
services.
This partially helped to offset the Bellel's relative unpopularity with private customers, which resulted from the harshness of the early diesel engine and peculiar styling. A small number of these cars found their way into other countries, with the Bellel also offered with left-hand drive. 37,206 Bellels were manufactured in total (including the Express wagon/van), with production coming to an end in May 1967. Isuzu had a long history of manufacturing diesel engine products, and noticed in Europe that the
Mercedes Benz
Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...
and
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
intermediate class sedans also offered a diesel engine option and decided to offer one as well.
References
External links
An essay on the Bellel in JapanesePre-facelift Bellels for sale (notice the triangular taillights)
{{Isuzu cars timeline 1950–1979
Bellel
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Mid-size cars
Sedans
Station wagons
Cars introduced in 1961