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| Mazda and Isuzu will again collaborate, like they did for a decade with the Titan from 2002. |
MAZDA and Isuzu have announced a basic agreement to base the next
Mazda BT-50 bakkie on the Isuzu D-Max.
The companies did not announce when the co-operation will start,
but as the Isuzu plants will have to be changed to build the Mazda bakkies,
pundits in the auto trade predict it will take two years before the first
“Mazuzu” comes off the assembly lines.
The same pundits predict the bakkie may not be built in Port
Elizabeth, but rather in Thailand.
In a short statement, the companies said the collaboration will
allow Isuzu to enhance its product competitiveness and Mazda to strengthen its
product line-up and maintain own-brand market coverage.
The bakkies will be going on sale worldwide except in North
America, where the Yanks prefer giant utes to our puny bakkies.
This is not the first such collaboration between the two giant
Japanese groups. For a decade from 2002, Mazda sold a rebranded Isuzu truck as
the Titan in the mid and Far East.
And with bakkies all looking alike these days, it will not be the
last we see of such badge-engineered chassis sharing either. The Nissan Navara
will form the underpinning of both a Merc as well as a Renault one-ton bakkie,
while Fiat launched its Mitsubishi Triton-based Fullback in South Africa this
month.
Meanwhile, Mazda reported that the BT-50 now accounts for around
six percent of total sales year to date, with the Mazda CX-5 and the Mazda3,
Mazda’s biggest sellers, with 55% of the sales volume combined, while the
popular Mazda2 and newly introduced Mazda CX-3 take up just under 40% of the
sales volume combined.
“The market conditions under which we started 2016 have altered and
as we head into the second half of the year, we’ll continue to work with our
dealer business partners with the aim to maintain momentum and capture our
potential share of what the market delivers,” said Mazda SA’s head of sales
Craig Roberts in a statement.
Mazda Southern Africa distributes through 50 dealers and will open
another two dealerships by the end of this year.
