Junkyard Gem: 1982 Isuzu P'up Diesel 4×4

In the 1970s, the Detroit manufacturers wanted to sell small pickups but didn’t want to spend the money to design their own. Instead, each turned to a Japanese partner: Ford sold the Mazda Proceed as the Courier, Chrysler offered the Mitsubishi Forte as the Plymouth Arrow Pickup/Dodge D-50/Dodge Ram 50 and GM brought over the Isuzu Faster and badged it as the Chevrolet LUV. Each of those Japanese manufacturers eventually began bringing over the same trucks with their own badging, and the Isuzu version was called the P’up at first. Here’s an early P’up, found in a Colorado self-service boneyard recently.

Isuzus were sold here with Opel badging for a while during the late 1970s, and Americans were finally able to buy I-Marks and P’ups starting in 1981. The final new Isuzu-badged vehicles sold here were, cruelly, rebadged Chevrolets.

This truck is essentially identical to the 1982 Chevrolet LUV, which was also available with four-wheel-drive and diesel power. This 2.2-liter oil-burner was rated at 58 horsepower and 95 pound-feet. Isuzu also provided the 51-horse diesel engine for the Chevette Diesel.

An automatic transmission was an option, but 58 horsepower with a slushbox would have been absolute misery even by the forgiving standards of the Late Malaise Era. This truck has the base five-speed manual.

It’s a genuine four-wheel-drive rig, complete with a range selector and locking front hubs.

In the bed is an enormous extra fuel tank with dual fuel filters. This truck probably had a range of 1,000 highway miles with this setup.

Because of the Oldsmobile diesel V8 fiasco of this era, Americans fell out of love with (non-Mercedes-Benz) oil-burning engines for decades to come.

I was expecting to see a gigantic final mileage total on the odometer, but that isn’t the case here.

The original owner’s manual was still present.

It started its career about 600 miles to the east, in a suburb of Kansas City.

Totally a Supreme Court Justice ensuring the truth here.

Most of Joe Isuzu’s commercials went on the air after the name of the P’up was changed to “Isuzu Pickup,” but it’s the same truck.

The Thai-market ads were far superior.