Mark,

Sorry for not getting back to your email!

I like your Bellett. It shouldn't be too hard to convert over to LHD.. off the top of my head you probably only require a LHD pedal box and steering rack.

The marks for the holes should already be in the firewall.. would just need to weld up the ones on the other side. The dashboard looks like it would convert from one to the other beautifully -- I think this was mentioned somewhere.

Get your recent photos online!

I'll keep everyone posted as to the trials and tribulations of Bellett hunting in Canada

Cheers,

Andrew

So I remembered that I had come across some pictures of a coupe in a junkyard somewhere in the states.. that's all I know..

Here are the pictures.. I have to admit, I love the towbar!

Ok, I've not checked the forum for about 4 days and it appears all hell has broken loose!

JT191 does like to sling shit around, be a bit cagey and speak in riddles like he's Agent Mulder, but he's an Isuzu enthusiast and he appears to have a Bellett. Whether he keeps it in Japan or USA or up his arse is anyone's guess, but he's still welcome here - but only if his comments do not make others feel uncomfortable or personally attacked.

In Australia, the rules are that if you're gonna dish it out, be prepared to have it served back. That's pretty simple. In sport we call it 'sledging' although the Yanks probably call it 'psyching'.

This thread did kinda get off topic, then kinda went back on topic and where it should be now is anyone's guess, but one thing's for sure; it's great to have it on our site.

For a start, we've been exposed to a rotting GT somewhere in North America, which is sad, but great to just see it at all. It's a pretty late job - 1972-1973ish. Try and find it! It doesn't look too deeply entrenched, unlike some of the others you've mentioned.

Andrew, I'm the Dave from Facebook and again I can vouch that with the standard rails, things aren't too bad. I found that my ankle used to get sore, but after a few drives my body either got used to it stretching that way or a piece of me died; one or the other. Actually, if I don't drive it for a couple of weeks I get that feeling again if I'm driving it for a while. The seats are quite thin and because they don't go back far (or recline on my model) the rear leg room is pretty good!

My (non Isuzu enthusiast) mate drove it to a show last year when I drove my Bellett GT and when I got back into the sedan, I drove it then braked and the seat slid about 2 inches forward then clicked into what must have been the final locking thingo. I had to ask him, with my height, what made him think that I DIDN'T have the seat all the way back in the first place?!?!? I guess you get a couple of extra inches if you don't mind sliding back and forth... but that's just not really on.

As for pronunciation of the word "Bellett", I was pronouncing it Bell-ay when I first got into them. A mate of mine said his girlfriend's friend had one (interestingly, there's a high chance the one he saw her driving is the one I have now) and she pronounced it "Bell-ett". That made sense when I thought about it because of the double TT would make it a hard sound, rather than the French-derived silent T of 'ballet'.

Further to this, some emphasise different parts of the word. I've heard many pronounce it "Bel.tt" - it's hard to describe, but basically as if the last e hardly existed. Probably a bit like the way 'bullett' is pronounced if you say it quickly. I've always kinda said "Bell-ett" because nobody told me otherwise.

JT191 will no doubt correct me, but the katakana alphabet used to spell foreign words in Japan (despite Belletts being indigenous Japanese cars, the word is not Japanese as such, so it gets spelled with katakana) would spell Bellett like this:

Actually before I say this, I have to explain that the Japanese (as far as I know) have no consonants that end without a vowel (except 'n'). Thus, every letter has 5 versions, each with a different vowel. Without giving you the actual script in hirogana or katakana, the letters go like:
a,i,u,e,o (vowels)

then stuff like:
sa,si,su,se,so
ta,ti,tu,te,to
ma,mi,mu,me,mo etc.

Plus stuff like tsa, tsu and other combos.

So Bellett cannot actually be written - coz there is no 't', just 'ta, ti, tu, te, to'.

And, of course, the Japanese have no L's at all!

So Bellett in Japan is very different:

BE-RE-TSU-TO

...is about it in English letters!

ベレット <--- here it is in Katakana if your PC supports it.

Bellett is a 4-letter word!

Anyway, must cruise. Got the Big Day Out concert festival on tomorrow so I should have got an early night. I think it's going to be 42 degrees or about 107.6 degrees Fahrenheight.

Yesterday when Ross and I scored a couple of Belletts (a whole different story) it topped out at our hottest day in 70 years... 44.7 degrees or 114.3 in Fahrenheight.

Basically kids, it's fucking hot!

See you after the show (if I don't completely evaporate - we are like 80% water!)

I'm not quite catching 65bellett. He seems to play along with some of the humor with the Mad Max references. I think you give the group I am referring to a little too much credit. Unlike Australians, they lack the courage to confront anyone face to face. Instead, they threaten to beat someone up if they find them at a show, cowardly avoid the person at the show, follow them after the show, and key scratch the persons car (8 out of 12 panels). But they have huge cahones (Spanish for balls) to yell at people on internet forums, which is what I would like to avoid.
But then 65bellett pulls a 180 with the idiots who don't contribute comment.

I just want to make sure C176 realizes that he criticized someone for knowing and using Japanese, and then immediately after this asked a Japanese language question... Must be a new technique for making friends and influencing people.


Dave, you are right about the pronunciation but possibly for different reasons than you realize.

Apparently, the first contact with Japan was by Portugal, and the Portuguese were the ones who determined which Latin alphabet symbols equate to which Japanese alphabet symbols. This accounts for some of the slightly strange letter and sound combinations, which don't quite match English.
The Japanese have three alphabets. Kanji is the pictograph characters borrowed from China and used for common words. It is seen as a quick way instead of spelling out phonetically, and indicates an exact meaning. Hirigana is the phonetic alphabet used for things that are indigenous to Japan. Katakana is the phonetic alphabet used for things that come from outside Japan. These two are twins, each having something like 46 letters, but different symbols for each. The letters are different from Latin, and the consonants are not alone to be paired independently with the vowels. Instead, they have the group of five vowels that can be used by themselves, and each consonant sound is paired with the five vowels to create five more unique letters. So the choice of sounds and combinations is restricted.
But the Japanese love to import words from outside Japan, so they make a lot of use of the Katakana alphabet, and have developed ways to cheat to get the range of sounds available with the Latin alphabet.

Many words are spelled the same way in Hirigana, but assigned different Kanji symbols so that their meaning when written is specific. When spoken, the meaning has to be determined by context. But the Japanese love word games, and like to make references by choosing the words they use based on the other words that share the same phonetic spelling (double entent).
Isuzu Motors chose is named after the sacred Isuzu river. The word Isuzu also means "50 bells". The phrase is considered lucky, and referred to continually. Isuzu's first independently produced car was a full sized sedan. They named it "Bellel", borrowing the word bell, and adapting it into a name for a car. Their second car was a smaller car, and they wanted to indicate the second car was a smaller version of a Bellel, so they named it "Bellett", just as a piglet is a small pig, therefore a Bellett is a small Bellel.
The Japanese language does not have an L and an R, but have a letter that is roughly directly between both those letters. The Portuguese decided it would be an R sound, and all L sounds would just be converted over to the R sound. So bell becomes "be ru" (ベル). Another cheat built into the language is that the vowel sound on the end of the last letter is dropped when pronounced, so that words can end with a consonant sound instead of a vowel sound.
Pronunciation emphasis is normally placed on the first syllable of a word. In order to move that and place emphasis on a sound farther back in the word, or create a hard sound, the Japanese language doubles up the consonant sound on the front of a letter. This is done by placing a small "tsu" (ッ) in front, used like a tilde to make the rolling r sound in Spanish or the apostrophe in French. So the tiny tsu letter is more punctuation than a letter. (This is done with T, S, Z, and other letters, but the symbol is still a tiny tsu).
So, Bellett becomes "Be Re tTo" or ベレット. The O on the end would be silent, though not often completely silent.

Pronunciation outside Japan? It's an English or Latin origin word, mangled by Japanese, and then exported. A Japanese person will firmly defend "makudonarudo" as the correct pronunciation for McDonnalds, and "sutabakusu" as the correct pronunciation of Starbucks.
Bellett started out as the English word bell that someone applied the diminutive suffix -let to. If it's piglet, then its "bellet".


I didn't just waste an hour typing this out to show off what I know, but because this is valuable information for anyone interested in these cars. This seems to be a popular trivia question that the rest of the world likes to ask people who own or know about these cars.
And if my sense of humor is too strange or misunderstood, remember that I am not attacking people here and have no conflict with anyone other than those threatening violence or vandalizing property.

I've located the car, here's the info:

"Andrew,

I was able to find the place again. I also called and talked to the old fellow who owns the place. He's reluctant to sell the car, but likely $2000usd and a bottle of Jack Daniels could probably secure it. He spent 15 minutes explaining his plan for a museum that he had been dreaming up for some time, and his annoyance at the car being listed for sale years ago, so I'm not sure if he would end up parting with it or not. When I went to look at the car four years ago, it had a tow bar welded on to the front bumper supports, the bumper itself nowhere to be found. The rocker panels had rusted out completely (but since the frame is aluminum, from my understanding, it should still be sound). It seemed like all the parts were there, but I would be amazed if it had a title. The driveshaft was removed, and I believe it was in the trunk. The guy also has it stored outside with the windows cracked, so the interior and dash are almost cerainly damaged. All in all, it would take a lot of work, but it may be worth the effort, as there are only a handful in the states. I also contacted the local Isuzu dealership, and the Isuzu america headquarters to see if parts could be obtained, but from their responses it looks like the best bet would be to contact an importer based in Japan.

Needless to say, your message rekindled my interest in that car as well. I wasn't looking for a fourth car, but this might convince me to dip into savings. I will certianly keep you informed, since I would be crazy to buy it as I'm trying to restore my '70 240z."

So that's the info on that.. It's apparently somewhere in Colorado.

It's basically the same story for all the Belletts I turn up in North America.. far far away, in pretty tatty shape, and a relatively expensive purchase price considering that you can buy a much better example in Japan for a little more than double (or no where near what it will cost to fix the shabby one even if you do it all yourself).

So I keep looking

And apparently you aussies just turn over a rock and find a couple?

This doesn't seem fair!

Cheers,

Andrew

I do not know of any aluminum parts on the vehicle, especially not the frame. If someone with more expertise would comment, please do. But I think you get to chase rust all the way through it.

You won't be able to go into a dealership with a part number for a non-US market car and order a part. They specifically exclude from the system any numbers that aren't on their local product.
They used to have someone in charge of parts importation that would special order parts for non-US market vehicles from Japan (if the parts still existed in Japan). This was many years ago, before two rounds of 3,000+ worker job cuts. I wouldn't know where to start to track through and find out if anyone could or would be willing out at the headquarters.
I have noticed a lot of late 60's and early 70's parts on auction that look brand new and have new labels on them (most recent corporate logo, not previous logos). Usually, old parts even from the 80's show the old labels, are dry rotted, and are covered in dust. I am lead to believe that they are continuing production of some of the replacement parts for the really old vehicles in Japan. Somebody making decisions might have a soft spot for the oldest cars, but definitely not for the later cars.

There is no aluminum frame, he's badly missinformed on that one. It's a steel unibody car like ~80% of all cars since the late 50s. At any rate you wouldn't want an aluminum frame for many reasons.. first of all it would cause the frame to rust more! (dissimilar metals, galvanic corrosion, there's another term I believe)... other than that Aluminum fatigues.. ask delorian owners how happy they are when their aluminum frame breaks on them when they go over train tracks



This doesn't surprise me at all. At any rate, buying parts directly from the dealer is a good way to get ripped off big time.

That's great that there are some new parts being made!

I don't know if the cars from the mid 70s to the I don't know whens are ever going to be considered a proper collector car. First of all, there was/are so many things not to like about them, and if you can get past that, the exponential increase in useage of plastic will mean that they will be a lot more difficult and costly to restore in the future as you won't just be fixing rust but you'll be trying to hunt down a plastic front end, rear end and a 200lbs plastic dashboard. OK I'm a little biased.

Yeah nah it's amazing... about 10 years ago nobody even considered any Jap cars classic, even the ultra-old stuff like Toyota Tiaras and the original Datsun Bluebird (well original Oz-delivered job, which was about 1963 or thereabouts) but these things have begrudgingly been deemed collectible, if only because there are so few left.

But again, it's only in the eye of the beholder. I got rejected from a 'rod and classic show' a couple of weeks ago, plus another classic show a few weeks ago they tried to make me park in the regular car park... but I convinced them to let me in.

But then again, the organisers of All Japan Day get all moist when they hear there's going to be Belletts! So it's horses for courses or whatever the saying is...

More recently here in Australia, we've seen some plastic 80's cars get extremely good prices, but these are specific, rare, specialist models.

Eg: a mint condition 1985 (VK-model) Commodore is probably worth about $4000... perhaps $6000 for a mint V8 model.... but a HDT (Holden Dealer Team) VK Commodore SS Group A homologation special, of which there were 500 built for local Group A racing, have been pulling $100,000+!!!! Even a tired one will probably get $40k, although recent economical uncertaintly has probably changed that.

Same with the later Group A homologation specials (HDT VL Commodore and the HSV VL Commodore, which was designed in the UK's MIRA wind tunnel and featured Australia's first EFI V8)... while the 80's Ford Falcons that are a bit less lucky, but versions like the 1982ish (XE-model) Fairmont ESP 5.8 litre, which is pretty rare now, are changing hands for $15-30k depending on condition.

So I guess in the furture, SOME plastic fantastic cars may increase (or at least hold) value, but run of the mill standard cars (eg non-special edition models), like what the standard Bellett sedan was when it came out, are unlikely to get any special treatment.

I just can't see a 2000-model Mitsubishi Lancer sedan with 30,000k's on it being a collectors item in 2030, where-as a Lancer EVO VII might well be...

That's my 2 cents ($0.02AUD = $0.0127311USD) worth! So it's not really even 2 cents worth. I mean, it's closer to 1.2 cents worth.... or 1.3 if you round it up.


Cheers,


Dave

Yes that's happening here as well for very specific cars. But that makes sense in that every beer drinking, red meat eating man in the country knows of the car and either wants one, or is at least interested in them a bit. The notoriety and widespread desirability of the car coupled with the low production numbers obviously is what drives the price up. Classic I can drop 100k and be the envy of everyone at the show yadda yadda.

Personally, that's the last thing I want is a rare numbers matching desirable car.. I'd much rather a tastefully improved clone I can beat on and leave wet and not feel bad about it

There certainly hasn't been a linear increase in the generally accepted year cut off for a classic car. It would stand to reason that all things being equal if 20 years ago anything from 1968 and older was a classic, now anything from 1988 and older would be.. but that's certainly not the case. I'd say in the last 10 years, the generally agreed upon year has moved up maybe 4.

But that's probably mostly due to the fact that late 70s and basically up to around 1988 or so almost all cars are terrible in stock form.. not sure how bad it got in Australia, but the states saw cars with 5:1 compression ratios and bumpers 12 feet long I'm exaggerating of course, but not by much.

Cheers,

Andrew

I didn't really touch on the old Japanese cars in that previous post. I think that most car guys want something with a V8 in it.. it's got the sound, it's big and manly

And for quite sometime especially before the internet, here at least, most car guys were anti foreign. Lots of myths (you'll spend $12910 for a simple part, no one will know how to work on it) and general ignorance/indifference.

Now with the internet, there's more information about all cars.

And now with the price of gas / economy, people are considering things without V8s.

Even some hard core hot rod dudes are giving some respect to straight 6s and 4s now in there machines.

Hello everyone,
I'm the one who found that late model 1800GT in Colorado. It was in sorry shape when I first saw it years ago, but it seemed to be salvageable. At the time, I had little money, right now I'm a bit better off, but not by enough to consider buying it too seriously. I am, however, planning on driving down to look at it again and give it a full once-over, which may end in an offer. One of the key points would be if I can get it legally on the road. When I go look, I can try to take some pictures if anyone is interested.

The aluminum frame comment was something I remember the seller mentioning, but since he referred to the car as the mini Jaguar Asian car, I should not have listened to him. The car is at a salvage yard, and the owner is in his 80s and in poor health (he's holding the door in the trunk picture), so it's possible that it may not stay around much longer. From what little I've read on the Bellett line, it would fit right in with my style of cars. I may end up being a regular here, checkbook be-damned.

David,

Good to see you on here. I didn't think you would mind me posting the non specific bits out of that message. I hope I was correct in that assumption

Please do post some photos.

I've somehow managed to turn up another person looking for Belletts, this time in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada).

It's starting to look like it may be worth while looking into the cost and logistics of importing several Belletts into North America. I don't have the time right now, but I will do some rudimentary research in the next few days. Some of the first things I'd look at is how many can you get in a container for instance. Also, how likely / costly would it be to round up several Belletts at a time.

I seem to recall a shop or two that had dozens in stock.

If this is the case, it might be as simple as negotiating a deal for x cars and have them do the exporting leg work. You would probably want to do that arrangement through a business and not as an individual.. all depends.

At any rate, without doing the math, my gut tells me you can get 4 belletts in a standard size container.. and if you dealt with one company that did all the exportation work at once, etc, etc.. you'd could get the shipping down to 3k or less per car at a western seaboard port..

Hello, Andrew. I found this last year while web wandering. It's old, but maybe it will lead you someplace. Looks like a nice G.T.
Regards, Matt.

Matt,

I remember seeing that ad. I didn't have the scratch at the time, and RHD belletts can be had for roughly that much all day anyday (imported)... or certainly not considerbaly more expensive.

I've come across a LHD Early 4 Door in the States if anyone happens to be looking. I would snap it up, but it's a ways away and I've got 2 NSU 1000s now and looks like I might add a Simca 1000 into the fold... so no money or space!

Hey Hudson, where's that early 4-door? As in what state?

Also is it running and driveable and rego'ed?

Cheers,

Dave

Tenessee.. no idea on state.. doesn't look too rusty, definitely not registered.

You know someone hunting belletts in North America?

Ah, I half thought of perhaps buying it myself, but this would mean that my wife would attach mains power to my nipples and repeatedly electrocute me until I was almost dead, let me recover then do it again.

And remember, Australia is 240v not 110v. That shit doesn't tickle!

I came exceptionally close to buying a LHD Isuzu Bellel a while back, but it fell through. But that was before I bought the Florian...

Well, the price of this one is right. He want's scrap plus a bit.

If you want protection from your wife... buy it and ship it to me.

I will give you weekly updates on how it's doing

Hello all,

I hate to make my first post a revival of a five-month-old thread but I just found this website and couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. I do apologize for the bad form but I though it would be better than starting a new thread and trying to explain everything again.

In short, I'm on the hunt for any remaining LHD bellets and I'd love to to be kept in the loop. Also, if there is serious talk about about importing a few together I'd be interested in being part of that co-op.

I live in BC, Canada. There used to be a smattering of Bellets here, some imported whole and others assembled in the East Coast. I haven't seen one now in over a decade. [Edited] If anyone knows of any for sale in North America I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks in advance for any help, and to everyone who put together this awesome website!