ISUZU OWNERS´ CLUB RY – FINLAND
This club is for the owners of old Isuzus and for everyone who is interested in them. The main purpose of the club is to organize events for the members and help them to maintain and repair their cars. The club was established in 1982 and has now been operational over 40 years.
Our Club keeps contacts to other Isuzu enthusiasts all over the world and for instance the group “Isuzu Bellett International” in Facebook is very active.
We have club members from Finland, Estonia, Norway and
Portugal. We have also been visited by Australian Isuzu enthusiasts.
NOS-parts, reproduction and used spare parts for old Isuzu models are sold by Fun Motors from Kotka, Finland. Tel: +358 40 723 4857. Mail: funmotors@co.inet.fi.
Registered for road use (="MOT") Isuzu vehicles in Finland January 30th 2023
- 30 Belletts
- 10 Florians
Our club has now about 70 members. So we’ve got a very big percent of the owners of existing Isuzus as our members. Our club magazine is published once in a year and we send also few newsletters to the members during the year.
Isuzu history briefly
Isuzu Motors Ltd started to produce commercial vehicles in 1916 and it made passenger cars from 1953 to 1993. For example Belletts were made between 1963 – 1973.
Isuzu has always been a minor manufacturer of passenger cars but it’s a very big manufacturer of commercial vehicles as trucks, buses, pickups and other diesel vehicles. Isuzu has also produced diesel engines for other manufacturers.
Usually people don´t know how rare car for example Isuzu Bellett is as we think it globally. About 6400 Belletts were imported to Finland and only Australia imported more Belletts. In Finland Belletts are left hand drive and that’s why they are even more rare because in Japan and Australia Belletts are right hand drive.
Most of the Belletts imported to Finland were 4-door sedans with 1471cc 71 hp and later 81 hp OHV engines. Fifteen 2-door Sports with 1584cc 90 hp OHV and later with 1584cc SOHC engines were imported too. The top models were the GT:s with OHV or SOHC engines (same as in Sports) or 1584cc twincam (DOHC) with 120hp.
These GTR:s were very fast. Acceleration 0-100km/h under 8 seconds, 0-400 meters in 16,4 and top speed was 190km/h. Three of these engines were brought to Finland and 2 were assembled from parts by the importer Suomen Koneliike Oy. They were tuned to give up to about 150 hp for rally use.
The most famous Isuzu rally drivers were Timo Salonen, Pentti Airikkala, Osmo Mäkelä and Pertti ”Konsta” Kärhä.
Belletts are very suitable for rally use, because the body is very strong. It has separate suspension in every wheel, stabilizers front and rear, fast rack and pinion steering (2,9 rounds), 53% of the weight is on the front wheels and 47% on rear (it´s more stabile than many mid engine sportcars) and it allows 53 degrees inclination before it turns on it´s side.
Of course, the main work these old Isuzus have done was to carry ordinary people from one place to another as family cars.
As the temperature in Finland can go as low as –30 celsius, Isuzus were famous of how they always started whatever the weather or temperature was. The importer Suomen Koneliike gave a guarantee for that.