did you keep the J-reg victoria plate? I haven't seen a J plate in a long time.

beautiful ute.

Yes mate I did. This is the story I've got/researched so far on the history and travels of the old girl. It was imported late 1963 up here into Qld by westco motors. It was sold to a local Toowoomba chap in Jan 1964 and from what I've got, he gave it to his brother from Victoria who then drove it down there in 1965 and it then got those 'J' series number plates - man that must have been an epic drive!!

In about 1980 after years in the Heathcote area(not sure of the exact location there though) - Michael from Selectmaz bought it really on novelty value as he'd never seen one. It then served as the service ute they dragged their drag cars back up side of the track. From about 1995, Micheal slowly(when he had time!!) partly overhauled, but found lack of parts was a big issue. He found me somehow through a magazine and I bought it as he retired and said he'd had more than enough of Mazda's in his life!!

The plates will end up hanging on the museum wall!

I do know that Mazda house in Victoria - unofficially Mazda Australia at the time did import three B1500's themselves in late 1964/65. I'm not sure of the exact reason why or whether they were sold in customers, would be great to find out more on the history or whereabouts now.

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Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

Thats looks so good with a clean up.
Well done Tim.
Awsome rare ute.

Cheers mate, it's certainly been a challenge but one I'm glad I took. I'm in the process of building it's sister car, a 64 B1500 dropside as well, must be crazy!

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Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

Yes mate, I would love one of those. Apparently one B1500 van was imported officially here to Australia, so I suppose I've got a chance!! I've got the engineers' book, sales brochures, workshop and parts catalogs on the B2000 extended cab so maybe I can find one. Doing what I do and what I collect, I'm finding that nothing is impossible to find, just depends how much you want to find it!!

I think the most allusive version is the mark 1 BUA61 chassis, I haven't never seen that yet in any body variant.

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Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

That was the original project code and the first chassis built from August 1961 through to march 1963. But in true Mazda style there were two versions of the BUA chassis and the BUB chassis even though there's no mention of it!

It was the basically the same dimensions as the my BUB61. The main external difference were(on most models!) was the grille, side front indicator lenses, side chrome moulds and guard mirrors. But again even for the very small amount that found their way here, we got different versions to the JDM models.

The BUA61 has the 9 slot grille and the BUB61 had 13 slots. Most BUB61 got the side chrome trims that ran from mid guard and along the door. You could get this though on the earlier ones as an option - you could say you could factory pimp your B1500! Most early versions only had a drivers mirror where the later ones got both, although I haven't seen too many JDM brochures with both fitted.

But as most of the brochures say as you have probably read, its the utility vehicle for the highway era! Trust me, it's very scary to drive at any speed, let alone highway speed!

_________________
Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!