Hiroshima’s distributor has consistently had a ute in play since the mid-1960s’ - but it’s all over now.

POTENTIAL access to an electric edition has not been enough to persuade Mazda NZ to keep its one-tonne ute in stock.

The Auckland-based operation has confirmed it is curtailing sale of the BT-50, thus quitting the pick-up genre it kick-started here almost 60 years ago.

The final shipment has recently landed and supply could well be exhausted by mid-year, with an incentive programme to hasten runout likely, a brand spokesman has suggested.

Mazda NZ has not disclosed the remaining stock count of the diesel doublecab, which presently advertises for $48,740 (GSX rear-drive) up to $70,290 (Takami 4WD) and has been averaging 30 units a month for the past year.

Confirmation of the type’s demise comes just a week on from assurance out of Auckland headquarters it was safely positioned.

Mazda NZ has given several reasons why it is abdicating a vehicle type it has had here since 1966, when the B-Series (below) became the first Japanese pick-up to be sold and assembled here.

The lineage that subsequently drew off lines shared with Ford and now Isuzu, as a badge engineering of the D-Max, has accrued an estimated 24,000 Kiwi sales in the entire period.

Yet it hasn’t done well in latest format, last year being a particular stinker.

On top of that, it no longer conforms to national ethos, Mazda NZ has now suggested.

In provided comment, Mazda NZ managing director David Hodge said his operation is redefining its future product range, with a focus on upcoming new models and electrification.

This was as part of Mazda’s multi-solution approach “which aims to reduce CO2 emissions across the business as well as offering appropriate powertrains in consideration of each market’s local conditions.”

Isuzu has indicated an electric drivetrain is coming for D-Max in 2025, with Europe prioritised (Norway first) then other markets following. 

Where Mazda fits into this is not clear, but the local spokesman indicated the type already nick-named ‘E-Max’ has been discussed.

It will come from the Samut Prakan, Thailand, plant that has supplied NZ and will continue to build for Australia, the Middle East, Africa and much of Asia.

However, it seems local introduction behind the Mazda badge, as a alternate to electric options set to arrive from BYD (in full battery dedication), Ford Ranger (plug-in hybrid, with limited electric drive) and Toyota Hilux (48 volt mild hybrid) would be a big stretch now.

Asked if Mazda NZ might reconsider reintroducing BT-50 were market conditions or opportunities to change, the spokesman said: “That is not something we have discussed.”

Mazda NZ has also cited emissions penalties the type’s current turbodiesels still attract as being too problematic for their 18-year-old nameplate.

While the Clean Car Discount that added thousands of dollars to the retail price and was directly copped by buyers has been rescinded, the Clean Car Standard - which imposes even higher, annually ramping penalties on distributors at point of import  - has not, though it is under review.

The Mazda NZ spokesman suggested CCS presents an insurmountable challenge, moreso than CCD, which he said in itself diluted interest in BT-50.

However, the nub of the matter is that BT-50 just hasn’t achieved volume targets, including during the CCD period when, the Mazda spokesman agreed, the Labour-installed emissions regulation generally did not hurt other ute-involved brands as badly.

Ironically, the one that weathered the tougher climate best is the Ford product the two preceding generations of  BT-50 based off.

Current Ford Ranger has held firm as not just the sector king but also the top-selling new vehicle. Last year, it nabbed 9907 registrations … to outsell BT-50 28-to-one.

BT-50 was also out-performed in 2023 by the Hilux (8054 registrations), Mitsubishi Triton (3105) and Nissan Navara, with 1143.

The D-Max took 1035 registrations.

Mazda’s overall market share in passenger and light commercial has also lessened, from six percent in 2021, to three percent last year.

But BT-50 seems to have fared worse than any other mainstream (non-MX) product line.

BT-50’s fortunes were waning in the previous generation; after  notching 2073 registrations in 2018 and 2325 in 2019, it fell to 1166 in 2020. 

In 2021, when Mazda NZ for eight months sold the last of the Ford-made models as cheaper alternates to the Isuzu-wed replacement, it came back, with 2033 units. 

The following year, though, was bleak, with just 745 sold and 2023 was even worse, bringing 347 registrations, according to Government data. 

Having seen Kiwi desire for rugged, high-riding off-roaders with high levels of comfort and refinement fuels the sector, Mazda NZ decided focus with the current BT-50 should be a lifestyle choice.

Determination to simply go with the wellside, double cab format that has become a de facto family hauler and divest the  overtly commercial-focused single cab and freestyle/cab plus variants it had previously provisioned was controversial with dealers. 

Those were types its programme partner maintained, and has subsequently done well with.

That BT-50 entered the sector with more safety features and the best ANCAP crash test score for the sector. Mazda gazumping Isuzu on market position of comparable variants also left BT-50 looking at advantage, though it was still pricier than some other favoured choices. 

Mazda kicked in with a 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel with 140kW and 450Nm output, siting in base GSX/GTX as well as high-end Limited and Takami models, all in four-wheel-drive.

Last April it moved rear-drive editions to a 110kW/350Nm 1.9-litre turbo-diesel engine, to ease then the burden of that CO2 penalty the National-led coalition government has now wiped.

Industry talk is that the dealer network was given a heads up about BT-50’s demise when attending a conference late last year.

The brand was asked last week if the type was in runout. It said it was not. When asked if updates now arriving with D-Max would come to BT-50, the answer was that any refresh was some months away. 

The make’s subsequent comment clearly relates a different story.

When the first Mazda B-Series arrived, as the B1500, it would have seemed a curiosity.

History now relates it was also a trail-blazer. The B1500 was also the first Japanese pick-up truck to be assembled here.

It beat the Toyota Hilux here by two years and the first from Datsun (now Nissan) by four. Mitsubishi didn’t get into the game until the late 1970s.

Through its production, Mazda used engine displacement to determine model designations; thus a B1500 was fitted with a 1.5-litre engine and a B2600 with a 2.6-litre.

Most B-series assembly occurred in plants dotted around Auckland, but started in Christchurch in 1967 at Steel's Motor Assemblies, which also built the Toyota Corona and later became Toyota New Zealand's Christchurch plant.

B1500 very quickly established as a Kiwi favourite, for some years being a category top-seller.  

The type renamed as the Bounty in 1998 and has been the BT-50 since 2006, that nameplate spanning four generations over those 18 years. 

Ford product spawned off the Mazda design represented first as the Courier - initially assembled, like its donor, in New Zealand - then as a Ranger.

Ford Motor Company had a big chunk of Mazda in 2006 when the first BT-50 came out. 

A model that ran for five years was very closely styled in look to the Ford. Just lights and a grille akin to that on the Mazda Tribute (a clone of the Ford Escape) of the time were allowed to identify which brand it represented.

Such twinning didn’t sit well with Hiroshima.  The second generation BT-50 came out in 2011 with a highly controversial front end restyling.

A front resembling the Mazda6 medium car, and the flared wheel-arches and leaf-style headlights from the Mazda3 compact car, attached to a body that from the A-pillars to the back shared Ranger panels, was to cement association with the passenger models. It was a gamble … and then some.

An improved look was rushed through within four years, with another update in 2018 that kept it in the market for more two years, but it always lacked all the technologies that Ranger gradually accrued.

These were built in Thailand, in a factory then co-owned with Ford, now wholly in Blue Oval hands.

Even though the Ford association didn’t conclude until the start of this decade, their marriage was effectively over from 2016 when a new partner was named.

Isuzu was a surprise choice then, as its previous D-Max was developed with Holden as the Colorado.

The reason why it wanted to shack up with Mazda began clear. In 2020 General Motors killed its Australian make. 

With that, the first ute Isuzu created with a partner’s identity died, too. 

Now the second has gone. Will there be a third time lucky?